'0. 


TALES    OF   THE    EX-TANKS 


TALES  of  THE 
EX-TANKS 

A   Book    of  Hard -Luck    Stories 
By     CLARENCE     LOUIS     CULLEN 

ffTou     can't    keep     a    squirrel    on     the    ground"* 


GROSSET     &     DUNLAP 

ELEVEN   EAST   SIXTEENTH   STREET 

NEWYORK     :    :    :    i 900 


These  sketches  originally  appeared  in  the  columns  of* 
THE  NEW  YORK  SUN,  and  the  author  and  publishers  wish 
to  acknowledge  the  courtesy  of  the  Editor  in  permitting 
their  publication  in  book  form. 


Copyright,    1899  and   1900,   by 
The   Sun   Printing   and   Publishing    Association. 

Copyright,  1900,  by  Grosset  &  Dunlap. 


TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 


A   BOOK   OF   HARD-LUCK   STORIES 


913694 


CONTENTS 


TALE   THE   FIRST 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.    3   Sheweth  that   the 
Hock-Shop  Violin  may  be  Ye  Real  Thing      .      1 7 

TALE    THE    SECOND 

Which   Explained!   How    Ex-Tank   No.    14 
Did  Win  Out  By  Means  of  Ye  Hansom  Cab     3  5 

TALE    THE    THIRD 

Which    Telleth   of    How    Ex-Tank    No.    9 
Escaped  From  Ye  Burg  of  Galveston    ...  .       .      53 

TALE  THE  FOURTH 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  24  Peddleth  Feather 
Flowers,  and  Resorteth  to  Ye  Sport  of  Kings     69 

TALE   THE    FIFTH 

Wherein  Ex -Tank  No.  i  5  Visiteth  Ye  Home 

of  His  Boyhood,  and  Thus  Winneth  Out       .      87 

TALE    THE   SIXTH 

In   Which   Ex-Tank   No.    4  Telleth   of  Ye 
Soldiers  Brave,  and  Some  Strange  Meetings        101 


CONTENTS —  Continued. 

TALE   THE    SEVENTH 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.  16  Illustrateth  the 
Value  Unto  Man  of  Ye  Good  Front  1 1  5 

TALE   THE   EIGHTH 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  12  Narrateth  His 
Experience  as  a  Strolling  Player  in  the  Drama 
of  Ye  Bard  of  Avon  /;.  ./ .  ,.  -  *29 

TALE  THE  NINTH 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.  17  Hath  His  Say 
Anent  the  Incalculable  Effect  of  Ye  Good 
Front I45 

TALE   THE   TENTH 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  19  Hath  Strange 
and  Wonderful  Luck  Through  Man's  Friend, 

Ye  Dog       .      •      •    /•;;"  ,Y     •  l61 

TALE  THE  ELEVENTH 

Wherein    Ex-Tank    No.  25    Elucidateth  Ye 

Theory  That  a  Man   is  Never    Broke  Until 

He  Is  Broke  ,..-.  ..;"  ;>V-       •          •    I?7 

TALE  THE  TWELFTH 

Containing  a  Report  of  Ex-Tank   No.   1 4  in 
the  Distressing  Position  of  Ye  Stowaway         .191 


CO  NT E NTS—  Continued. 

TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH 

Which  Speaketh  of  How  Ex-Tank  (Hoodoo) 
No.  13  Wickedly  Represented  Himself  as 
Ye  Theological  Student  .  .  .  .207 

TALE  THE  FOURTEENTH 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  6  Sheweth  Up  the 
Vanity  of  Ye  Sturdy  Pioneers  of  the  North 
west  .  • 221 

TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.  5  Speaketh  Divertingly 

of  the  Reliever  Stage  of  ye  Jag    .          .          .233 

TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  (Hoodoo)  No.  13  Be- 
cometh  Discursive  as  to  the  Dreamy  Isles  of 
ye  Pacific 251 

TALE  THE  SEVENTEENTH 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.  8  Hath  a  Good  Word 

for  Ye  Much- Maligned  Burg,  Council   Bluffs   265 

TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.  21  Hurleth  a  Nosegay 

in  the  Direction  of  Ye  Chief  Ex-Tank  .    277 

TALE  THE  NINETEENTH 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  1 1  Dwells  Upon  the 
Misdirected  Zeal  of  Ye  Chicago  Sleuth  .  29; 


CONTENTS—  Continued. 

TALE  THE  TWENTIETH  PAGI 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.  3  Endeavoreth  to 
Convey  an  Idea  of  the  Misery  of  Awakening 
in  ye  Bug- Ward  .  .  .  .  -305 

TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  n  Relateth  How 
He  Annihilated  the  Distance  over  ye  Rocky 
Mountains  •  .  .  .  .  .  .321 

TALE  THE  TWENTY-SECOND 

Wherein  Ex-Tank  No.  1 8  Discourseth  Warn- 
ingly  on  the  Insidiousness  of  ye  Gambling 
Bug  .  .  \  .  .  .  .  337 

TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  22  Forgiveth  Ye 
Isle  of  Manhattan,  After  Having  Departed 
Therefrom  in  Wrath  .  .  .  -349 

TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH 

In  Which  Ex-Tank  No.  27  Findeth  Himself 
Shanghaied  on  Board  ye  Brigantine  Monmouth 
Queen 363 

TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH 

Wherein  Ex- Tank  No.  19  Dwelleth  Rem- 
iniscently  and  Feelingly  Upon  ye  Joys  of  His 
Former  Peaceful  Home  .  .  .  .381 


Introductory  Note 

FREQUENT  enquiries  have  been  made  by  readers 
of  these  tales  as  to  the  exact  address — street  and 
number — of  the  Harlem  Club  of  Former  Alcoholic 
Degenerates.  Those  of  the  enquirers  unto  whom 
the  information  was  vouchsafed  subsequently  com 
plained  that,  when  they  diligently  hunted  up  the 
addresses  given,  they  found  themselves  regarding 
(i)  the  bleak  emptiness  of  vacant  lots,  (2)  the  unin 
viting  exteriors  of  third-rate  dressmaking  establish 
ments,  or  (3)  the  bland,  steamy  outworks  of 
Chinese  laundries.  The  first  class  of  searchers  for 
the  club's  plant  therefore  rushed  to  the  conclusion 
— which  they  expressed  in  letters — that  the  tales 
were  as  vacant  of  truth  as  the  vacant  lots  were  of 
club  edifices.  Those  whose  investigations  led 
them  to  the  dressmaking  establishments  voiced  the 
belief  that  the  tales  were  made  out  of  whole  cloth. 

Those  whose  search  for  the  club  took  them  to  the 
11 


12  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

Chinese  laundries,  hesitated  not  to  deliver  them 
selves  of  the  opinion  that  the  tales  were  "  pipe- 
dreams,"  as  their  celestial  source  must  plainly  in 
dicate. 

Far  be  it  from  the  reporter  of  the  deliberations 
of  the  Harlem  Club  of  Former  Alcoholic  De 
generates  to  endeavor  to  cast  the  mantle  of  mystery 
over  the  club's  location.  Is  it  not  within  the 
range  of  belief  that  the  Ex-Tanks  themselves  do 
not  know  the  club's  address — that  they  are  con 
veyed  thereto  blindfolded  and  in  closed  carriages, 
and  removed  in  precisely  the  same  manner  upon 
the  terminations  of  the  club's  sessions — and  that, 
in  consequence,  the  Ex-Tanks  remain  as  ignorant 
of  the  exact  location  of  the  club  of  which  they  are 
members  as — in  their  degenerate  days — they  doubt 
less  often  were  as  to  the  exact  locations  of  their 
own  homes  ? 

In  any  event,  what  does  the  address  signify  ? 
The  membership  quota  of  the  club  has  been  filled 
to  the  limit  for  a  long  time  past,  so  that  scores  of 
clamorous  Ex-Tanks,  eager  for  admission,  have 
clamored  in  vain — for  few  initiated  Ex-Tanks  die, 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE  13 

and  none  resign.     They  are  too  appreciative  of  a 
good  thing  to  do  either  the  one  or  the  other. 

Certain  mischievous  friends  of  the  writer  of 
these  tales  solemnly  profess  their  belief  that  all  of 
the  stories  are  autobiographical.  It  will  be  obvious 
to  the  reader  that,  however  large  an  area  a  some 
what  restless  newspaper  man  may  have  covered 
before  attaining  his  thirtieth  year,  and  varied  as 
such  an  individual's  experience  may  have  been,  he 
could  not  possibly  be  all  of  the  Ex-Tanks  rolled 
into  one.  The  writer  hopes  the  reader  will  view 
the  matter  in  this  light,  at  any  rate. 

CLARENCE  Louis  CULLEN. 
New  York,  July  15 ,  1900. 


TALE  THE  FIRST 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  3  SHEWETH  THAT  THE 
HOCK-SHOP  VIOLIN  MAY  BE  YE  REAL  THING 


TALE  THE  FIRST 

WHEREIN     EX-TANK     NO.     3    SHEWETH    THAT     THE 
HOCK-SHOP  VIOLIN  MAY  BE  YE  REAL  THING 

u  Now,  St.  Louis  was  my  hoodoo  town,"  said 
Ex-Tank  No.  3,  unconsciously  disobeying  one  of 
the  club  rules  by  making  rings  on  the  table  with 
the  bottom  of  his  glass  of  vichy  and  milk.  "  Dur 
ing  the  progress  of  six  tumultuous  years  I  never  hit 
St.  Louis  that  it  didn't  get  me  down  and  out  before 
I  so  much  as  had  a  chance  to  take  a  look  at  Shaw's 
Gardens.  It  didn't  make  any  difference  whether  I 
struck  St.  Louis  wearing  spurs,  sombrero  bells  and 
giglamps,  coming  from  the  West,  or  whether  I  got 
into  it  with  a  silker,  studs  and  patent  leathers,  trav 
elling  from  the  East,  that  insidious  town  always 
took  a-hold  of  me  during  those  six  pipe-dreamed 
years  and  counted  me  among  the  also-rans  before  I 
had  a  show  to  find  out  where  I  was  at.  It  fairly 
makes  me  ache  to  think  of  the  number  of  times  I 
walked  under  the  steely,  glittering  stars  that  hang 
over  St.  Louis,  wondering  how  I  could  get  just 
one  hooter  to  make  me  feel  that  life  would  be 
17 


1 8  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

worth  living  five  or  ten  minutes  longer.  And  I 
v/inf  to  go  on  record  as  saying  that,  hard  as  the 
proposition  was  on  each  and  all  of  these  occasions, 
I  always  got  the  hooter.  But,  as  I  say,  I  had  to 
walk  long  distances  under  stars  that  just  winked 
me  the  laugh  before  I  thought  the  thing  out,  and  I 
generally  had  to  take  my  vest  to  a  second-hand 
store  at  the  finish,  at  that. 

"  But,  fellow  Ex-Tanks,  there  never  was  a  hoo 
doo  yet  that  couldn't  be  broken.  I  smashed  that 
hoodoo  the  last  time  I  covered  St.  Louis.  The 
last  time  I  covered  St.  Louis  I  got  out  of  it  on  the 
varnished  cars,  and  not  on  a  side-door  Pullman, 
and  I  had  a  front  and  all  colors  of  it  in  my  clothes; 
This  thing  of  getting  out  of  St.  Louis  as  a  deck 
hand  on  a  freight  boat  bound  for  Memphis — but, 
as  I  say,  St.  Louis  doesn't  owe  me  anything 
now.  A  Stradivarius  violin  is  a  great  thing,  any 
how." 

Then  No.  3  gazed  into  his  glass  of  vichy  and 
milk  dreamily.  Ex-Tanks  Nos.  6  and  9  called 
him  to  order  at  once. 

"  What  the  dickens,"  they  both  inquired  to 
gether,  "  has  getting  out  of  St.  Louis  with  two 
dollars  and  a  railroad  ticket  got  to  do  with  a  Strad 
fiddle  ? " 

The  Chief  Ex-Tank  perceived  the  reasonable- 


TALE  THE  FIRST  19 

ness  of  this  question  and  requested  No.  3  to  re 
frain  from  drifting. 

"  Well,"  continued  No.  3,  "  this  Stradivarius 
fiddle  was  the  thing  that  enabled  me  to  rip  out  the 
works  of  that  St.  Louis  hoodoo  and  look  'em  in 
the  face.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  that  fiddle — but  it 
wasn't  a  fiddle  ;  it  was  a  violin.  There's  just  as 
much  difference  between  a  fiddle  and  a  violin  as 
there  is  between  Hickory  Jim  and  George  Dewey, 
and " 

At  this  point  No.  3  was  again  called  to  order  by 
several  Ex-Tanks  for  roping  in  extraneous  matter 
in  connection  with  a  recital  of  an  alleged  win-out, 
as  they  put  it. 

"  I  wouldn't  ha'  gone  to  St.  Louis  at  all  that 
last  time,"  proceeded  No.  3,  after  this  round-up, 
"  if  I  hadn't  been  pushed  over  there  by  accident. 
I  made  a  finish  of  a  Chicago  spiel  no  further  away 
than  in  Dayton,  O.  I  don't  remember  getting  to 
Dayton,  but  I  remember  getting  away  all  right.  I 
got  a  shave  and  a  shine  and  a  haircut  and  a  fifteen- 
cent  collar  in  Dayton  when  I  came  to,  and  hit  up 
some  people  there  for  a  job.  I  thought  they 
might  give  me  something  to  do  in  the  sweep-out 
line,  just  to  enable  me  to  buy  a  ticket  for  some 
place  or  other  after  a  couple  of  weeks'  work ;  but 
they  didn't.  Derned  if  they  didn't  take  hold  of 


20          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

me  at  the  right  end,  some  way  or  another — prob 
ably  because  I  shot  a  good  line  of  talk  into  'em — 
and  undertake  to  teach  me  the  business  and  how 
to  sell  their  goods.  Never  got  handled  so  white  in  my 
life  as  I  was  handled  in  Dayton  by  those  people. 
After  I'd  hung  around  the  works  there  for  a  month 
or  so  they  told  me  to  stand  by  to  go  on  the  road 
to  sell  goods.  I  stood  by  with  a  whole  lot  of  a 
broad  grin,  I  want  to  say,  for  the  fellows  who  were 
then  selling  their  goods  on  the  road  were  making 
money  by  hatfuls.  When  they  finally  told  me, 
however,  that  my  first  trip  was  to  be  to  St.  Louis 
I  was  ready  to  do  a  lay-down.  I  did  better  than 
that,  though.  I  up  and  told  the  man  who  was 
handling  me  all  about  it — what  a  hoodoo  St.  Louis 
had  always  been  to  me,  and  that  if  he  sent  me  to 
St.  Louis  to  sell  goods  Pd  probably  draw  on  him 
for  a  thousand  dollars  before  I'd  been  there  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  then  he  wouldn't  hear  any  more  of 
me  or  my  samples. 

"  '  That's  all  right,'  said  he.  *  St.  Louis  is  the 
only  vacant  territory  I've  got  just  now,  and  that's 
where  you're  going — to-night.  Pack  up.' 

"And  so  I  went  to  St.  Louis  to  sell  goods. 
How'd  I  make  out  ?  Oh,  only  about  $50  to  $100 
a  day,  clean,  that's  all.  For  the  first  week  I  was 
there  I  sold  so  many  goods  that  I  was  afraid  the 


TALE  THE  FIRST  21 

Dayton  folks  couldn't  make  'em  fast  enough  to  de 
liver,  and  I  wired  the  firm  about  it.  They  wired 
me  back  to  sell  a  million  if  I  could,  and  I  started 
in  to  do  it.  The  hoodoo  seemed  to  be  broken. 
Never  had  such  slathers  of  luck  in  my  life.  My 
four  dollar  a  day  room  at  the  Laclede  wasn't  big 
enough  for  me  after  three  days,  and  so  I  got  a  suite, 
so  I  could  pay  more  money  for  my  accommodations. 
Then  I  fell  to  selling  goods  only  in  the  morning, 
because  I  felt  compunction  about  taking  all  the 
money  in  St.  Louis  for  myself  and  my  firm,  and  in 
the  afternoons  I  went  out  to  the  Fair  Grounds  and 
looked  at  'em  run.  Couldn't  lose  at  that  game, 
either.  Picked  five  out  of  six  on  the  card,  every 
day  for  six  days  running,  and  then  says  I  to  my 
self,  l  This  hoodoo  business  is  all  a  hasheesh  fan 
tasy.  If  I  felt  any  better  I  couldn't  stand  it.  If 
I  had  any  more  luck  it  'ud  kill  me.  I'll  just  take 
one  or  two,  to  spread  a  few  dollars  around  a  town 
that  I'm  taking  too  much  money  out  of.'  Which 
I  did.  I  just  got  nibbling  at  the  stuff — same  old 
way — and  doing  business  at  the  same  time.  I 
went  right  on  selling  goods  and  nibbling  at  the 
red-eye,  and  making  the  coin  to  give  away.  I 
couldn't  see  any  finish  to  it. 

u  One  afternoon,  after  I'd  been  in  St.  Louis  for 
nearly  a  month,  I  happened  to  pass  by  a  pawnshop 


22          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

that  looked  familiar  to  me.  The  annual  sale  of 
unredeemed  pledges  was  going  on  at  the  time,  and 
that's  how  I  happened  to  notice  the  joint.  I  got 
to  thinking  about  it  and  I  remembered  that  two 
years  before,  when  I  was  rassling  with  the  St. 
Louis  hoodoo  and  getting  the  worst  of  the  falls,  I 
had  put  in  two  good  sparkers  there — a  ring  and  a 
pin.  I  wondered  if  I  had  any  show  to  get  them  at 
this  sale,  and  so  I  went  in  to  find  out  about  it,  hav 
ing  all  colors  of  stuff  in  my  clothes  to  redeem  them 
if  they  were  still  there.  They  were  still  there.  I 
looked  them  over  and  I  wanted  them.  The  pawn 
shop  people  saw  that  I  wanted  them,  and  so  they 
told  me  I  had  no  more  claim  on  them,  not  having 
paid  the  interest,  than  the  general  public — that  they 
were  going  to  put  the  ring  and  the  pin  up  to  be 
auctioned  off  that  same  afternoon.  So  I  stayed  to 
watch  the  bidding  on  them.  I  had  a  few  of  the 
St.  Louis  brand  of  drinks  under  my  vest  at  the 
time,  and  felt  pretty  good.  I  had  to  wait  for  the 
auctioneer  duck  to  come  to  my  ring  and  pin,  and  I 
watched  the  other  stuff  being  put  up  without  much 
interest  until  the  fellow  down  below  handed  up  an 
old  leather  violin  case.  That  made  me  sort  o' 
woozy.  I  recalled  that  when  I  was  a  kid  my 
father  had  tried  for  several  years  to  drum  some 
violin  music  into  me — using  a  fence  picket  for  the 


TALE  THE  FIRST 


23 


purpose,  generally,  on  account  of  my  disinclination 
to  do  any  practicing — and  I  thought  to  myself  that 
I'd  just  pull  down  that  old  violin  for  fun.  I  asked 
the  chap  on  the  block  to  let  me  look  at  it,  and 
I  inspected  it  critically,  not  knowing  any  more, 
really,  about  a  violin  than  I  did  about  active  tem 
perance  work. 

"This  was  a  queer-looking  old  outfit,  though. 
It  was  a  bruised-looking  old  riddle,  without  any 
bridge  or  strings  on  it.  There  was  nothing  fancy 
about  it — no  gingerbready  mother-of-pearl  inlaid 
work  or  anything  of  that  kind — but  there  was  a 
head  on  the  end  of  the  neck  that  was  carved  into 
what  looked  to  me  like  a  mask  of  tragedy  or  some 
thing  like  that.  The  case  was  of  untanned  leather, 
with  old-fashioned  brass  hinges,  and  there  were 
three  funny-looking  old  bows,  with  little  or  no 
hair  on  'em,  in  the  box.  I  decided  to  get  the  old 
thing,  anyhow,  and  string  it  up  and  see  if  I  could 
remember  how  to  play  c  Rory  O'More,'  the  only 
tune  I  ever  could  learn  on  the  riddle  when  I  was  a 
kid.  I  passed  it  up  to  the  auctioneer,  nobody  else 
caring  to  look  at  it,  and  he  started  it  going  at  a 
dollar.  I  bid  two  and  got  the  whole  outfit  at  that 
figure.  Then  I  waited  until  they  put  up  my  ring 
and  pin  and  got  them  at  the  figure  I  had  paid  for 
them  originally.  Then  I  picked  up  my  old  violin 


24  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

case  and  went  to  my  suite — how's  that,  my  suite  ? 
— at  the  Laclede.  I  put  the  fiddle  case  under  the 
bed,  went  out  and  got  a  few  more  high  balls,  and 
forgot  all  about  the  thing  for  a  week.  By  the  time 
that  week  had  passed  I  wasn't  selling  so  many 
goods.  I  was  too  busy  to  pay  much  attention  to 
the  goods.  I  was  trying  to  see  if  I  couldn't  find 
out  what  had  become  of  that  St.  Louis  hoodoo.  I 
wanted  to  give  the  hoodoo  every  chance  in  the 
world  to  show  up,  and  I  did.  I  thought  of  the  old 
fiddle  one  afternoon,  however,  and  went  into  a 
music  store  and  bought  a  set  of  strings  for  it  and  a 
bridge  and  bow.  I  took  the  old  fid  out  when  I  got 
to  the  hotel  and  strung  her  up.  I  remembered 
how  to  do  that,  anyhow.  But,  say,  I  found  when 
I  tried  to  saw  on  it  that  I  couldn't  play  a  note.  I 
remembered  how  c  Rory  O'More '  went,  all  right, 
but  I  was  the  hammiest  thing  that  ever  happened 
when  it  came  to  doing  it  with  a  bow.  I  noticed 
when  I  picked  the  strings  of  that  old  violin,  though, 
that  it  sounded  pretty  good — kind  o'  deep  and  rich 
and  contraltoish,  with  a  lot  of  volume  and  reso 
nance  and  that  kind  o'  thing. 

"  c  Well,'  says  I,  when  I  put  it  back  into  its 
case  and  shoved  it  under  the  bed,  '  the  fid's 
worth  two  dollars,  anyhow,  and  the  first  Dutch 
man  I  meet  that'll  play  "The  Irish  Washer- 


TALE  THE  FIRST  25 

woman  "  for  me  on  it  will  get  the  old  thing  for 
nothing.' 

u  Then  I  forgot  all  about  it  all  over  again.  By 
this  time  I  was  nibbling  pretty  hard  at  the  old  stuff, 
and  not  thinking  much  about  business.  I  had  seven 
or  eight  hundred  ready  money  and  business  wasn't 
bothering  me.  Then  came  the  night  that  I  went 
up  against  the  green  stuff  that  the  boy  behind  the 
bar  frappes  for  you,  and  it  was  all  off".  The  hoo 
doo  got  me.  I  didn't  know  anything  for  a  week, 
and  when  I  got  out  of  the  trance  I  found  a  large 
and  turbulent  stack  of  telegrams  from  my  Dayton 
people.  Most  of  'em  were  asking  me  for  explana 
tions  as  to  where  I  was  at.  The  last  one  read  like 
this  : 

"'You  are  fired/ 

" '  The  thunder  you  say,'  says  I,  and  I  went  out 
and  tanked  up  again  for  another  week  or  so.  Then 
I  got  a  lucid  interval  long  enough  to  pay  up  the 
bill  for  that  Laclede  suite  and  to  take  a  two  dollar 
a  day  room  on  the  European  plan,  and  by  that 
time  I  had  only  thirty  five  dollars  left  out  of  the 
wad — and  no  job.  The  hoodoo  was  getting  in  its 
work  by  this  time  all  right,  and  I  could  see  the 
deck-hand  finish  on  the  freighter  as  far  down  as 
Memphis  again. 

"  Well,  the  same  three-balls  outfit  got  the  ring 


26          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

and  pin  a  week  or  so  later,  and  after  that  the  thing's 
a  good  deal  of  a  dizzy  blank  until  I  came  to  in  a 
little  six  by  eight  room  in  a  theatrical  boarding- 
house  with  nothing  much  to  speak  of  except  forty 
cents  in  change  and  two  or  three  beer  tickets,  and 
the  whole  wardrobe  in.  Didn't  recall  putting  the 
things  in,  but  they  weren't  anywhere  to  be  seen, 
and  I  found  the  tickets  in  my  pockets  when  I  did 
the  usual  digging  around  act  customary  under  such 
circumstances.  I  went  out  and  blew  in  the  forty 
cents  and  beer  tickets,  and  then  I  came  back  to  the 
room  to  see  if  I  couldn't  find  something  else  where 
upon  to  raise  the  price.  The  end  of  the  old  fiddle 
case  stuck  out  from  beneath  the  bunk,  and  I 
pulled  it  out.  I  thought  I  might  be  able  to  get 
fifty  cents  or  a  dollar  on  it,  and  I  reflected  what  a 
gorgeous  inspiration  it  had  been  on  my  part  that 
afternoon  to  buy  it  in.  I  took  it  out  of  the  case  to 
see  if  the  strings  were  all  right  still,  and  picked  on 
it  some.  Then  I  drew  the  bow  across  the  strings  to 
see  if  the  old  thing  was  in  tune,  so  that  if  the 
pawnbroker  guy  tried  it  he'd  find  it  all  right.  I 
was  hauling  the  bow  across  the  G  and  D  strings 
when  I  heard  a  rap  on  my  door.  '  Come  in,'  says 
I,  and  the  queerest  little  chap  you  ever  saw — all 
hair  and  eyes — walked  in. 

u  l  I  hairt  ze  veeolin,'  he  said,  '  unt  I  ze  lip- 


TALE  THE  FIRST  27 

perty  took — it  zound  most  veil.  May  I  him 
see  ? ' 

"  I  handed  it  over  to  him,  and  he  looked  it  over, 
and  then  he  looked  me  over.  Then  he  felt  all 
over  the  fiddle,  and  rapped  on  the  back  of  it,  and 
examined  the  inside  of  it,  and  fondled  that  mask 
of  tragedy  headpiece,  and  finally  picked  the  strings. 
Then  he  looked  me  over  some  more. 

" '  Vair  you  get  zis  ?  '  he  asked  me,  and  denied 
if  the  hairy-looking  little  old  chap  didn't  examine 
me  with  suspicion. 

"  '  At  a  hock  shop,  for  a  couple  o*  dollars,'  said 
I.  '  Why  ? ' 

"  He  went  on  picking  the  strings  again,  and  then 
he  gave  me  such  a  series  of  suspicious  stares  out  of 
his  big  fiery  eyes  that  he  sort  o'  made  me  hot. 

" '  Is  there  anything  ailing  you,  Jim  ? '  I  asked 
him. 

"  He  didn't  make  any  reply,  but  he  put  that  old 
fiddle  under  his  chin,  made  a  sweep  with  the  bow, 
gave  a  crash  on  the  strings  from  the  G  up  to  the  E 
and  all  on  the  bridge  in  a  chord,  and — say,  it  gets 
me  around  the  neck  to  talk  about  that  duck's  music, 
honest  it  does.  I  never  heard  anything  like  it. 
Why,  it  was  simply  devilish  !  What  he  couldn't 
do  to  that  old  thing — well,  he  gave  a  lot  of  those 
crashing  chords  all  over  the  violin,  and  then  he  be- 


28          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

gan  'way  down  on  the  bottom  of  the  G  string  and 
fooled  around  there  with  those  stubby  ringers  of 
his,  and  you  could  shut  your  eyes  and  think  there 
was  a  woman  in  the  room  with  a  contralto  voice, 
and  a  soul  in  it,  at  that.  Then  he  gradually 
worked  his  way  up  to  the  top  of  the  E  string  and 
burst  into  a  lot  of  low  whimpering  up  there,  and, 
after  keeping  that  up  a  while,  down  he  went  to  the 
G  again  with  a  mutter  like  a  little  cascade,  and — 
well,  I  walked  over  to  the  dirty  window  of  my 
room,  looked  out  into  the  alley,  and  felt  sorry  for 
making  such  a  hash  of  my  life,  and  I'm  not  such 
a  soft  slob,  either.  There's  not  a  fellow  in  this 
room  that  that  music  wouldn't  have  made  to  feel 
like  thirty  cents,  and  I  know  it.  He  must  have 
played  away  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  and  when 
he  did  stop  I  turned  around.  I  knew  that  he 
couldn't  have  made  that  music  on  an  ordinary  fid 
dle,  and,  badly  as  I  was  in  need  of  the  price,  I 
had  already  reconsidered  the  idea  of  taking  it  to  a 
three-ball  shack  and  putting  it  in  for  a  half-dollar 
or  so. 

u  '  You  play  that  thing  pretty  well,  Jim,'  said  I. 

"  He  pulled  out  a  big  red  bandanna  handkerchief 
and  wiped  his  eyes.  Then  he  shrugged  his  shoul 
ders. 

u  '  Unt  who   could   nod  ? '  he  said.     '  Besites,  I 


TALE  THE  FIRST  29 

Belong  to  ze  Thomas  Orchestra — am  a  fairst  veeo- 

i  O 

lin.     Ziz  week  we  are  here  blaying.' 

"  Then  he  sort  o'  shook  himself  together. 

"  '  I  gif  you  fifty  tollar  vor  ze  instrument,'  he  said. 

ucNot  on  your  tintype,'  said  I.  c  That  fid's 
been  in  my  family  since  1723,  and  it  isn't  for  sale. 
I'm  temporarily  on  the  hog,  but  I'm  hanging  on  to 
that  violin  all  right.' 

"  He  looked  me  over  again. 

u '  I  gif  you  for  eet  an  huntairt  tollar,'  he  said. 

"'You  must  think  I'm  dead  easy,'  said  I.  'I 
don't  play  on  the  violin  myself,  but  I  know  'em 
when  I  see  them.  You  ought  to  be  a  good  enough 
violinist  to  see  at  a  glance  that  that  violin  is  a  first- 
rate  Strad.' 

"  '  Nod  exactly  a  firsd-rate  one,'  he  said,  '  but  ze 
tone  ees  loafly.  Eet  ees  vat  you  call  a  second — a 
goot  eggsample,  bud  nod  ze  vair  highest.  I  gif  you 
zwei  huntairt.' 

u  '  Come  again,'  said  I.  c  You  want  to  multiply 
that  about  five  times,  and  then  maybe  I'll  do  busi 
ness  with  you.  I  know  what  it's  worth.' 

"  He  played  on  it  again,  and  then  he  made  his 
last  raise — $300.  I  suppose,  at  that,  I  could  have 
made  him  hit  it  up  to  the  $500  mark,  but  I  saw 
the  way  the  thing  was,  and  I  wanted  to  give  that 
St.  Louis  hoodoo  a  good  hard  twist.  I  finally  told 


30          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

him  that  he  didn't  have  the  price  to  pay  me  for  the 
violin,  but  that  if  he  would  make  me  a  first-rate 
immediate  sale  of  it — say,  $1,000  or  $1,500 — I'd 
treat  him  right.  He  wanted  it  himself  too  much 
to  take  very  enthusiastically  to  this  idea,  but  at 
last  he  said  he  knew  a  collector  of  old  violins  in 
St.  Louis — he's  quite  a  famous  man  in  that  line — 
who  would  buy  the  violin  at  sight.  He  went  along 
with  me  to  see  this  man.  The  collector,  because 
I  was  a  bit  shaky  after  my  little  month  of  it, 
thought  that  he  could  throw  it  into  me,  and  tried 
on  the  brusque  act,  questioning  me  as  to  where  I 
had  got  the  instrument,  etc.  I  called  his  bluff, 
and  marched  him  down  to  the  pawnshop  where  I 
had  bought  it  for  two  dollars.  You  ought  to  have 
seen  the  pawnbroker's  eyes  stick  out  when  he 
learned  of  what  a  good  thing  he  had  let  get  away 
from  him.  He  made  my  title  clear,  however,  and 
told  the  collector  that  the  violin  had  been  brought 
in  two  or  three  years  before  by  a  colored  man,  and 
that  it  had  been  up  on  the  block  at  the  annual  sales 
ever  since.  The  auctioneer  hadn't  been  able  to 
get  rid  of  it  at  any  price  until  I  happened  along. 
The  coon  had  stolen  it  somewhere,  of  course,  but 
that  wasn't  up  to  me.  The  collector  gave  me  my 
figure,  $1,500  spot  cash,  for  it  that  afternoon,  and 
he's  got  it  yet,  I  understand,  and  has  never  even 


TALE  THE  FIRST  31 

had  to  fight  a  claimant  of  it,  although  it  was,  he 
told  me — and  he's  a  man  that  knows  about  these 
things — as  genuine,  if  not  as  absolutely  perfect,  a 
Strad,  as  ever  came  out  of  Italy.  I  gave  the 
'  fairist  veeolin  '  of  the  Thomas  Orchestra  his  bit 
for  putting  me  next. 

u  I  eloped  from  St.  Louis  the  next  day  with  the 
ring  and  pin  and  the  rest  of  the  ticketed  things  on 
again,  and  I  made  faces  at  that  St.  Louis  hoodoo 
until  the  train  was  in  the  middle  of  the  State  of 
Illinois.  But  I  haven't  taken  any  chances  on  that 
town  since." 


TALE  THE  SECOND 


WHICH  EXPLAINETH  How  EX-TANK  No.  14  DID 
WIN  OUT  BY  MEANS  OF  YE  HANSOM  CAB 


TALE  THE  SECOND 

WHICH    EXPLAINETH     HOW    EX-TANK     NO.      14    DID 
WIN    OUT    BY    MEANS    OF    YE    HANSOM    CAB 

u  IT'S  funny  how  a  town  becomes  too  small  for 
you,  under  some  circumstances,  ain't  it  ?  "  is  the 
way  Ex-Tank  No.  14  got  under  way  when  he  was 
reminded  by  the  Chief  Ex-Tank  at  the  club's  last 
fortnightly  meeting  that  his  number  had  been 
drawn. 

"  Now,  New  York's  a  big  town,  ain't  it  ?  I 
leave  it  to  all  of  you  gentlemen  if  New  York  ain't 
a  big  town,  hey  ?  But  it  certainly  looked  to  me 
then — the  time  I'm  going  to  tell  you  about — as  if 
New  York  was  no  bigger  than  Peru,  Ind.,  or  East 
St.  Louis,  111.  You  see,  after  you've  been  steadily 
and  properly  soakful  for  three  months  or  so  the 
town  begins  to  look  diminished,  contracted  in  area. 
You  figure  it  that  you've  got  all  the  routes  worked 
and  that  all  hands  are  next  to  you ;  that  the  news 
boys  on  your  beat  have  got  your  case  all  down  pat ; 
that  the  barkeeps  are  beginning  to  freeze  up  on  you 
and  that  they  are  rapidly  losing  all  recollection  of 
35 


36          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

the  not  remote  times  when  you  wore  a  frock  coat 
and  a  top  hat.  Understand  ? 

"  When,  in  short,  the  jag  gets  to  such  a  frazzled, 
outworn  stage  it  waxes  reproachful  and  you  imagine 
that  the  whole  town  has  knocked  off  both  work 
and  play  for  the  purpose  of  watching  you  slouch 
along  the  street,  unshaven,  and  with  your  clothes 
unbrushed  and  your  shoes  only  half  tied  and  a  few 
dents  in  your  hat  from  the  scrap  you  had  on  the 
night  before.  I  lack,  you  will  perceive,  fellow  ex- 
tanks,  the  faculty  of  clear  and  continuous  portrayal  ; 
I  am  only  an  impressionist  and  if  I  exhibit  sketch- 
iness  bear  with  me.  It's  a  hard  thing,  anyhow,  to 
make  it  clear  just  how  small  a  town  gets  under 
these  circumstances  :  how  it  shrivels  up  when  you 
begin  to  feel  that  your  most  important  job  in  life  is 
to  dodge  the  cops,  even  though  they  may  not  have 
so  much  as  the  first  focus  on  you. 

"At  any  rate,  when,  in  the  early  winter  of  1890, 
I  had  accumulated  the  usual  pocketful  of  dog's-eared 
pawn  tickets  and  the  game  began  to  get  pretty  hard, 
I  knew  that  New  York  didn't  look  any  bigger  to 
me  than  Elizabeth,  N.  J.  ;  and  so  I  had  to  entertain 
soggy  ideas  of  leaving  the  atrophied  town  to  its 
fate.  I  was  c  in  the  midst,'  as  it  were,  of  these  re 
flections — wondering  just  where  I'd  pull  out  for 
and  how  I'd  get  there — when  I  meets  up  with  our 


TALE  THE  SECOND  37 

honored  fellow-member,  No.  19.  Nineteen  had 
just  begun  work  on  his  regular  early  winter  still 
when  I  met  him ;  nevertheless,  he  was  already 
broke.  And  so  we  got  together.  No.  19  didn't 
think  New  York  was  so  almighty  small — he  hadn't 
yet  arrived  at  that  stage — and  he  said  that  he 
thought  New  York  was  good  enough  for  him.  He 
was  willing,  however,  to  cooperate  with  me  in  any 
plan  I  might  formulate  that  would  enable  me  mer 
cilessly  to  abandon  New  York  to  a  sorry  destiny 
without  me. 

"  Now  I  began  to  wonder  who  I  could  touch  up 
for  a  pass  to  some  place  or  other.  It  all  simmered 
down  to  one  man — an  old  pal  of  mine  who  ran  a 
lumber  yard  up  in  Fordham.  I  knew  that,  alone 
and  unaided,  I  could't  get  the  pass  from  him,  for, 
never  having  qualified  for  membership  in  an  organ 
ization  of  this  kind,  he  was  dead  sore  on  the 
alcoholic  degenerate  question.  I  mentioned  this  to 
No.  19.  Nineteen,  with  his  customary  genius,  saw 
a  way  out  of  it.  He  had  only  his  usual  sedate  still 
on  at  the  time,  while  I  was  soggy  and  disposed  to 
discourse  on  Carthaginian  history.  Nineteen  hails 
a  passing  cab — neither  of  us  had  a  cent,  you  know 
—and  he  orders  the  cabman  to  drive  us  out  to  the 
lumber  yard  in  Fordham.  I  didn't  see  through  the 
proposition,  but  when  No.  19  told  me  that  it  was 


38          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

up  to  me  to  keep  still  and  to  look  just  as  depraved, 
wanton  and  helpless  as  possible,  as  my  part  of  the 
programme,  I  closed  up. 

"When  we  got  to  the  lumber  yard  I  just  leaned 
back  in  the  cab  and  looked  soggy,  as  per  agreement 
with  Nineteen,  and  he  went  in  to  have  a  talk  with 
my  pal.  He  told  him  in  that  persuasive,  I'm-just- 
doing-this-for-an-unfortunate-man  sort  of  way  of 
his  that  I  was  a  wreck,  and  that  it  was  impera 
tively  necessary  that  I  should  be  sent  to  my  people, 
who  lived  out  in  Denver;  that  he  wouldn't  answer 
for  the  consequence  if  I  wasn't  put  aboard  a  train 
and  sent  to  my  people  in  Denver;  that,  unfor 
tunately,  he  himself  was  not  sufficiently  strong  in 
funds  to  send  me  to  my  folks  in  Denver ;  conse 
quently  he  had,  out  of  purely  philanthropic  motives, 
called  at  the  lumber  yard  to  see  what  could  be 
done.  It  was  a  good  story,  that  of  Nineteen's, 
and  it  went.  My  old  pal  came  out  to  the  cab  and 
looked  me  over.  I  knew  that  he  was  looking  me 
over,  but  I  didn't  let  on.  I  apparently  slumbered. 
He  prodded  me,  but  that  didn't  work.  I  ap 
parently  slumbered  on. 

" c  Too  bad,'  I  heard  him  say  to  Nineteen. 

'  Why,  I  can  remember  when  that  old  chap  was . 

Well,  I  guess  you're  right  about  the  necessity  for 
sending  him  to  his  folks.  If  something's  not  done 


TALE  THE  SECOND  39 

with  him,  something'll  happen  to  him.  I'll  ship 
him  out  to  Denver  if  you  see  that  he  gets  aboard 
the  train/ 

"  Sure,  he  would  see  that  I  got  aboard  a  train, 
said  Nineteen,  and  so  it  was  all  right.  My  old 
friend  telegraphed  down  to  a  railroad  office,  to  have 
the  railroad  people  give  Nineteen  a  ticket  for 
Denver,  with  sleeper  berth,  upon  application, 
chargeable  to  his  shipping  account,  and  he  handed 
Nineteen  twenty  dollars  to  give  to  me  for  necessary 
travelling  expenses  when  I  got  aboard  the  train. 
And  I  apparently  slumbered  on  until  the  cab  pulled 
away  from  the  lumber  yard. 

" c  Say,  where  do  you  want  to  go,  anyhow  ? ' 
Nineteen  asked  me  when  we  got  under  way.  I 
told  him  any  old  place  would  do. 

"  '  How  about  Chicago  ? '  he  asked  me. 

u  I  thought  Chicago  would  be  bully,  I  told  him. 

u '  You  see,  if  you  like  Chicago,'  he  said,  '  we 
can  get  a  rake-off  on  the  ticket.  I've  got  a  ticket 
for  Denver  for  you,  you  know.' 

"  So  we  drove  down  to  the  railroad  office  and 
got  the  ticket  for  Denver,  Nineteen  meanwhile 
having  handed  me  ten  dollars  out  of  the  twenty 
dollars.  Having  determined  upon  Chicago  as  my 
next  place  of  abode,  we  took  the  ticket  down  the 
line  to  see  what  could  be  done  with  it.  Nineteen 


40          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

was  pretty  well  up  on  the  dodgers  of  scalpers,  and 
he  knew  how  to  dicker  with  'em.  So  he  was  able 
to  exchange  the  ticket  for  Denver  for  a  straight 
limited  ticket  to  Chicago  and  get  fourteen  dollars 
in  change,  which  was  doing  mighty  well.  I  got 
ten  dollars  out  of  the  fourteen  dollars  change,  be 
sides  the  ticket  to  Chicago,  and  then  Nineteen 
and  I  started  in  to  make  our  adieus  to  each  other 
I  don't  remember  that  part  of  it  very  well. 

"  The  last  I  remembered  of  New  York,  after  I 
found  myself  aboard  a  train  bound  for  Chicago 
was  Nineteen  punching  a  cabman  somewhere  on 
Sixth  avenue,  and  then  there  was  a  blank.  But 
there  I  was  on  a  train  bound  for  Chicago  all  right, 
already  in  the  middle  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
broad  daylight,  no  trunk,  no  baggage  of  any  kind, 
and  seventy  cents  in  silver  only.  At  Altoona  I  got 
a  pint  through  the  car  window,  the  boy  charging  me 
twenty  cents  for  getting  it  for  me,  and  by  the  time 
the  train  drew  into  Pittsburg  was  pintless  and  flat 
broke.  Something  had  to  be  done,  could  see  that. 
It  was  early  in  December,  and  the  weather  was 
mild,  sunshiny  and  balmy,  and  so  I  got  off  at 
Pittsburg.  I  got  twelve  dollars  on  my  overcoat,  and 
took  the  next  train  out  for  Chicago,  without  an 
overcoat,  but  with  two  quarts  and  money.  Then 
I  got  mixed  up  with  the  gang  in  the  smoking  car, 


TALE  THE  SECOND  41 

and  I  was,  as  usual,  a  good  thing.  I  got  another 
quart  at  every  stop  for  'em,  and  it  was  one  de 
lirious  whirl  of  bliss  until  the  train  reached  Chicago, 
which  I  don't  remember.  The  brakie  came  along 
and  prodded  me  and  yelled  '  Chicago  !  '  at  me,  and 
then  I  got  off. 

"  It  was  about  seven  o'clock  at  night  when  the 
train  got  into  Chicago,  and  there  was  a  blizzard  in 
Chicago.  It  had  been  snowing  hard  in  Chicago 
all  day,  and  along  toward  night  it  had  got  too  cold 
to  snow.  The  temperature  was  about  4°  below 
zero,  and  the  stars  looked  frostier  than  I  had  ever 
seen  'em.  So  did  the  huge  cops,  with  their  tough 
caps  pulled  down  over  their  ears.  I  had  one  drink 
left  in  the  last  bottle,  and  I  absorbed  it  outside  of 
the  depot.  Then  I  was  good  and  up  against  it  for 
fair.  I  had  never  been  in  Chicago  before.  I 
didn't  know  a  man,  boy  or  dog  in  the  town.  Here 
I  was,  broke,  without  an  overcoat  in  a  temperature 
of  4°  below  zero,  no  front  to  speak  of,  no  jag- 
feeder,  nothing. 

" '  My  boy/  says  I  to  myself  as  I  buttoned  up 
my  sack  coat  outside  the  depot,  c  here  is  where  you 
get  vagged  and  break  rock  on  the  pile.' 

"  But  I  thought  I'd  take  a  walk  around,  any 
how.  So  I  dug  my  hands  into  my  pocket  and 
started  to  walk.  The  streets  were  jammed,  and 


42          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

all  of  the  men  had  on  inch-thick  ulsters  and  all  of 
the  women  electric  seal  sacques.  It  made  me  feel 
sad  and  cold,  that  did.  Then  I  could  see  the 
ducks  dropping  into  the  booze  factories  in  pairs 
and  threes — all  of  'ern  dressed  up  and  with  thirty 
or  forty  cents  each  in  their  clothes — and  it  was 
very  hard — honest  it  was.  I  kept  on  walking  until 
I  reached  a  corner  where  there  were  a  couple  of 
newspaper  offices  catty-cornered  from  each  other. 
I  afterward  found  out  that  it  was  the  corner  of 
Dearbonx  and  Madison  streets.  Now  in  front  of 
one  of  these  newspaper  offices  there  were  a  couple 
of  cabs.  The  drivers  weren't  anywhere  near  that 
I  could  see,  and  the  flash  came  to  me  all  of  a 
sudden. 

" '  What's  the  matter  with  my  making  an  honest 
dollar  or  two  with  one  of  these  cabs  ? '  I  thought. 

"  So  I  stepped  up  to  the  seat  of  one  of  the  cabs, 
wrapped  the  lap  robe  around  my  legs,  pulled  on  the 
reins,  and  we  were  off  in  a  bunch.  I  confidently 
expected  to  hear  somebody  yell  after  me,  but  I 
thought  that  would  be  as  good  a  way  to  get  pinched 
as  any  other.  Nobody  yelled  after  me.  It  was  all 
right.  I  had  a  good  cab  and  a  good  horse,  and  it 
was  up  to  me  to  use  'em. 

"As  I  say,  I  didn't  know  any  more  about 
Chicago  than  I  did  about  Timbuctoo,  but  I  just 


TALE  THE  SECOND  43 

pulled  the  horse  around  the  corner  where  I  saw  the 
biggest  crowd.  I  was  driving  along  a  street  that  I 
afterward  found  out  was  Wabash  avenue,  several 
blocks  away  from  where  I  had  swiped  the  cab,  and 
keeping  close  to  the  curb  for  possible  passengers, 
when  a  couple  of  warm  members,  all  togged  out  in 
fur  coats,  came  out  of  a  rum  repository  and  yelled 
at  me.  I  drew  up  alongside  the  curb. 

"  '  Hey,  Bill,'  said  one  of  'em,  c  just  shoot  us  out 
to  the  fight,  will  you  ? ' 

"  Of  course  I  would,  said  I.  I  didn't  know  any 
more  about  any  fight  than  I  did  (then)  about  the 
House  of  David  on  Clark  street,  but  I  had  to  make 
a  bluff. 

" '  How  many  for  the  pair  of  us  ?  '  asked  the  hot 
tamale  that  had  hailed  me. 

"  c  Ten  apiece,'  said  I. 

"  c  All  right,'  they  both  said  at  once,  and  there 
I  was  in  a  fair  way  to  win  out  by  finding  twenty 
dollars.  After  they  both  hopped  into  the  calash,  I 
made  a  mumbling  excuse  to  hustle  into  the  saloon. 

"  '  Hey,'  says  I  to  the  barkeep,  '  where's  this 
fight  coming  ofF  to-night  ?  " 

"  The  barkeep  looked  at  me  as  if  he  thought  I 
had  been  stacking  up  too  long  against  a  barrel 
house,  but  he  told  me.  The  fight  was  to  take 
place,  he  said,  in  the  '  barn '  way  over  on  the  South 


44  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Side.  I  didn't  know  anything  about  the  '  barn,' 
but  I  wasn't  going  to  give  myself  away  and  excite 
suspicion.  So  I  hustled  back  to  the  cab,  wrapped 
up  again,  and  started  south.  I  knew  that  much — 
which  direction  the  south  was — and  just  took  a 
chance  on  finding  the  joint  where  the  fight  was  to 
happen.  I  had  driven  about  half  a  mile  along 
Wabash  avenue  when  I  fell  in  with  a  procession  of 
cabs  and  hansoms.  They  all  seemed  to  be  going 
the  same  way,  and  a  lot  of  the  fellows  inside  of 
'em  were  bawling  and  singing.  So  I  correctly 
figured  it  that  all  of  the  barouches  were  bound  for 
the  fight,  as  I  was,  and  all  I  had  to  do  was  to  fol 
low  them.  My  two  ducks  had  a  bottle  apiece  with 
'em  to  keep  out  the  cold,  and  they  were  hitting 
them  up  pretty  hard  all  the  way  out,  occasionally 
handing  one  of  the  bottles  out  for  me  to  swig, 
which  I  don't  need  to  inform  the  honored  mem 
bers  of  this  organization  was  a  godsend  under  the 
prevailing  conditions.  When,  after  about  an  hour's 
pull  in  the  wake  of  the  procession  of  cabs  and  han 
soms  I  pulled  up  outside  the  'barn,'  which  in 
reality  was  a  huge,  housed-over  pavilion,  I  was  a 
bit  nervous  about  the  other  cabbies.  I  feared  they 
might  tumble  to  the  rig  and  get  next  to  me.  So  I 
was  pretty  well  pleased  when  my  two  passengers 
stumbled  out  of  the  rig  and  began  to  gaze  upon  me 


TALE  THE  SECOND  45 

with  the  sympathetic  eye.  The  one  I  had  made  the 
bargain  with  handed  me  a  twenty  dollar  note  that 
he  peeled  oft'  his  wad,  and  then  he  said  : 

" '  Hey,  Mike,  d'ye  want  to  see  the  scrap  ?  * 
"  Well,  I  didn't  so  much  want  to  see  the  scrap 
as  I  did  want  to  abandon  that  cab,  but  you   can 
gamble  that  I  didn't  waste  any  time  replying  that  I 
just  ached  to  see  the  fight. 

"  '  Come  'long,  then,'  my  jagged  passenger  said, 
and  I  followed  'em.  They  had  box  seats  already 
bought  for  themselves,  but  the  good-natured  geezer 
that  had  asked  me  if  I  wanted  to  take  in  the  fight 
bought  me  a  three  dollar  seat  up  in  the  front  row 
before  the  ring.  That  let  me  out  of  the  cab  scrape, 
I  knew,  and  so  I  settled  down  to  wait  for  the  ring 
carnival.  There  were  two  or  three  preliminary 
bouts  between  dubs,  and  then  the  two  prize  middle- 
weights  of  the  night  came  on.  They  hadn't  been 
fighting  half  a  round  before  it  was  apparent  that 
the  taller  man  of  the  two  was  outclassed  by  about 
a  million  pounds  by  the  squat  man  as  a  scientific 
scrapper.  All  the  tall  chap  was  good  for  was  to 
take  punishment,  and  he  could  beat  any  mixed-aler 
at  that  that  I  ever  saw.  The  squat  man  danced 
around  and  made  a  punching  bag  of  the  lanky  chap 
from  the  start  of  the  ten-round  go,  and  the  gang 
was  shouting  all  the  time,  '  Take  him  out !  '  re- 


46  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

ferring  to  the  outclassed  man  with  the  advantage  in 
inches.  By  the  time  the  eighth  round  came  around 
the  thing  was  simply  a  farce.  The  tall  man  was 
so  dopey  that  he  could  barely  raise  his  arms, 
and  he  ran  around  the  ring  in  a  dazed  kind  of 
way. 

"  Now,  sitting  a  couple  of  rows  behind  me,  there 
was  one  of  these  here  talky  sports  that  knew  all 
about  how  the  thing  was  going  to  wind  up.  The 
eighth  round  was  pretty  nearly  over,  the  tall  fighter 
about  the  worst  licked  man  you  ever  saw,  when 
this  chinny  sport  jumped  up  and  yelled  : 

u  c  Twenty  to  one  he  don't  last  the  ninth  round  !  * 

"  I  like  to  call  a  chinner's  bluff,  and,  anyhow,  I 
saw  a  remote,  vague  chance  of  making  a  decent 
winning  a — a  tog-out  winning  and  a  start,  overcoat 
and  all.  So  I  turned  around  and  addressed  the 
sport  with  a  jaw. 

" '  How  much  of  that  twenty  to  one  have  you 
got  ?  '  I  asked  him. 

"  '  All  you  want  of  it,'  he  answered  airily. 

"'How  about  $400  to  $20  that  he  don't 
last  the  ninth  round  ? '  I  asked  him. 

" '  You're  on,'  said  the  sport,  a  bit  weaker  than 
he  had  talked  before,  but  all  of  his  pals  were  taking 
it  in,  and  so  he  couldn't  back  down.  I  pulled  out 
my  solitary  twenty  dollars,  and  he  dug  into  his 


TALE  THE  SECOND  47 

wad,  peeling  off  four  $  TOO  bills.  We  deposited  the 
stakes  with  a  man  in  the  seat  directly  between  us. 

u '  This  is  like  getting  twenty  dollars  in  a  letter,' 
said  the  chinny  sport.  I  didn't  think  I  had  a  show 
on  earth  to  win,  but  I  thought  I  might  as  well  take 
a  chance.  It  was  like  playing  a  1,000  to  I  shot 
in  a  race  to  win,  but,  then,  I've  seen  things  of  the 
sort  go  through  at  that.  And  with  $420  I  could 
be  an  ace  and  get  a  start  out  in  the  Town  of 
Wind.  With  only  twenty  dollars — well,  after  I 
got  an  eight  dollar  ulster  there  wouldn't  be  much 
to  it.  These  things  I  thought  over  as  I  sat  and 
watched  'em  fanning  the  two  pugs  for  the  ninth 
round. 

"  Now,  my  man  looked  a  heap  better  to  me 
when  he  wabbled  up  to  take  his  medicine  in  this 
round.  He  didn't  look  like  a  winner,  but  he 
seemed  to  have  shaken  himself  together  with  the 
determination  of  staying  out  the  ten  rounds. 
Everybody  noticed  this,  and  the  talky  hot  sport 
with  whom  I  had  the  bet  looked  a  bit  nervous  over 
it,  as  I  perceived  out  of  the  tail  of  my  eye.  The 
two  fighters  riddled  around  a  bit,  the  squat  man 
getting  in  a  couple  of  hard  stomach  jabs  on  the 
tall  guy — and  then  it  happened.  It  happened  with 
such  suddenness  that  hardly  anybody  could  say 
just  how  it  was  done,  and  everybody  agreed  that  it 


48          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

was  a  fluke  of  the  flakiest  kind.  But  the  tall  man, 
in  emerging  from  a  hot  mix-up,  shot  out  his  left, 
more,  apparently,  with  the  intention  of  warding 
off  a  swipe  from  the  other  man  than  for  any  other 
reason.  There  was  steam  in  his  shooting  out  of 
his  left,  and,  probably  accidentally,  his  fist  caught 
the  squat  man  fairly  on  the  point  of  the  jaw,  and 
he  went  down  like  a  clothing  store  dummy.  The 
referee  was  doing  the  arm-counting  on  him  before 
anybody  realized  what  had  happened.  When  the 
ten  seconds  were  up  and  the  squat  man  was  still 
prone,  with  no  sign  of  getting  up,  the  stakeholder 
of  the  $420  turned  to  the  sport  with  the  penchant 
for  conversation,  saying  : 

" '  You  lose.' 

"  Then  he  handed  me  the  wad  of  $420. 

"The  garrulous  sport  made  the  beginning  of  a 
beef  about  the  thing  being  a  job,  but  his  pals  threw 
it  into  him  about  being  a  chaw-bacon  and  a  would- 
be  welcher  and  he  subsided ;  so  I  didn't  have  the 
least  bit  of  trouble  in  hanging  on  to  the  $420.  I 
rj;ot  out  of  the  '  barn '  with  it  and  made  for  a  drug 
store.  There  I  telephoned  down  to  the  newspaper 
office  in  front  of  whicl\  I  had  swiped  the  cab,  ask 
ing  the  people  in  the  business  office  if  there  had 
been  a  wild-eyed  cabman  inside  hunting  for  his 
rig.  They  said  that  such  was  the  case. 


TALE  THE  SECOND  49 

" c  Well,  it's  out  here  in  front  of  the  shack 
where  the  fight  was  pulled  off  to-night,'  I  told  'em, 
and  then  I  rang  off. 

"  Then  I  rode  into  town  in  a  hack  and  took  a 
room  for  the  night  at  the  Hotel  Richelieu  at  ten 
dollars  a  throw.  The  clerk  looked  at  me,  a  hard- 
luck-looking,  overcoatless  proposition,  when  I  reg 
istered,  but  I  paid  him  for  the  room  in  advance 
and  that  went.  The  next  morning  I  went  down 
the  line  and  togged  out.  Then  I  hunted  up  the 
cabman,  told  him  I  had  grabbed  his  cab  the  night 
before  when  I  was  too  far  submerged  in  the  juice 
of  the  grape  and  paid  him  thirty  dollars  for  his 
anxiety  and  loss  of  a  night's  work.  He  was  all 
right,  the  cabman,  and  made  no  roar.  So  I  had 
about  $300  with  which  to  start  plugging  the  game 
in  Chicago  and  it  was  a  sober  act  for  the  rest  of 
my  stay." 

"  Which  I  may  state,  before  adjourning  this 
meeting,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank,  rising,  "  that 
for  a  quick  win-out,  Fourteen's  the  pacemaker  and 
the  probable  winner  up  to  date." 


TALE  THE  THIRD 


WHICH  TELLETH  OF  How  EX-TANK  No.  9  ES 
CAPED  FROM  YE  BURG  OF  GALVESTON 


TALE  THE  THIRD 

WHICH    TELLETH  OF    HOW  EX-TANK  NO.  9  ESCAPED 
FROM    YE    BURG    OF    GALVESTON 

"  WHEN  I  read,  a  while  back,  that  the  Beach 
Hotel,  a  few  miles  outside  of  Galveston,  had 
burned  to  the  ground,  I  was  swept  by  a  wave  of 
memory,"  said  Ex-Tank  No.  9,  reflectively. 
"  Not  that  I  ever  put  up  there.  That  isn't  it. 
But  I  once  saw  the  outside  of  that  hotel  structure 
under  such  peculiar  and  I  might  almost  say 
harrowing  conditions  that " 

"  Hold  on  there  a  minute,"  interrupted  Ex-Tank 
No.  7,  who  is  a  stickler  for  the  carrying  out  of  the 
club's  plans.  "  Is  there  any  hard  luck  in  this  as  a 
result  of  alcoholic  degeneracy  ?  " 

No.  9  regarded  No.  7  with  an  aggrieved  gaze. 

"  Have  I  ever  yet,"  he  inquired,  "  since  the  or 
ganization  of  the  Harlem  Club  of  Former  Alcoholic 
Degenerates,  sprung  any  Sunday-school  ones  about 
the  good  little  boy  and  the  bad  little  boy,  or  have  I 
ever " 

u  Oh,  well,"  replied  No.  7,  settling  back  in  his 
53 


54  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

seat,  "  if  you're  going  to  conform  to  the  club  rules, 
of  course,  all  right,  go  ahead.  Only  I  couldn't 
quite  see  the  connection  between  the  Beach  Hotel 
and " 

"  Shut  up,  Seven,"  said  all  of  the  members  at 
once.  "  Nine  has  now  got  the  deck.  Nine,  shoot 
it  out." 

"  On  this  occasion  that  I  started  to  speak  about," 
resumed  No.  9,  "  I  remember  regarding  the  rather 
handsome  exterior  of  the  Beach  Hotel  with  such  a 
bitter  feeling  of  unjust  disapproval  that " 

"Rule  No.  1,184,  'Don't  begin  a  yarn  in  the 
middle  or  at  the  end,' "  quoted  No.  7. 

"  I  correct  myself,"  said  No.  9.  "  Therefore, 
I  begin  at  the  beginning.  Everything  begins  and 
ends  here  in  New  York.  This  particular  jag  be 
gan  here  in  New  York  in  the  month  of  August — 
let's  see,  in  1889,  it  was.  Yes,  I  remember  now. 
It  was  in  1889,  the  year  after  the  blizzard,  on 
which  occasion  I  slept  under  a  seventeen-foot 
bank  of  snow  over  in  Hackensack  for  two 
days " 

"As  you  were  saying,  in  August,  1889,  you" — 
again  interrupted  No.  7. 

"In  August,  1889,"  continued  No.  9,  "I  had 
been  sober  for  fully  five  months.  Consequently  I 
had  too  much  money  and  too  many  good  clothes. 


TALE  THE  THIRD  55 

Moreover,  five  months  of  straightaway  work  con 
tains  so  many  possibilities  of  monotony — but  I 
need  not  dilate  upon  this.  You  all  know  how 
damaging  to  the  inspiration  an  uninterrupted  period 
of  five  months'  work  is  bound  to  be.  Then  the 
$600  that  I  had  soaked  away  produced  within  me 
a  very  tired  feeling.  Now,  if  I  had  only  remained 
here  in  New  York  with  that  $600 — well,  I  could 
ha'  had  a  two  months'  whirl  easy,  with  hospital 
money  left  besides  for  the  finish.  But  on  the  very 
next  morning  after  the  jag  began — why,  I  woke  up 
on  a  boat.  Say,  d'je  ever  wake  up  on  a  boat  after 
a  night  without  knowing  how  you  got  there  ?  It's 
a  queer  feeling,  sure  enough.  Of  course,  I  had 
the  head  when  I  came  to,  and  the  first  thing  I  did 
when  I  woke  up  was  to  look  around  for  a  button 
to  push.  It  struck  me  then  that  the  room  I  was 
in  was  pretty  small ;  also,  that  it  swayed  a  good 
deal.  I  sat  up  and  looked  around,  and  then, 
durned  if  I  didn't  hear  the  chug-chug  of  the  pro 
peller. 

"  '  It's  a  boat,  all  right,'  I  thought, c  but  what  kind 
of  a  boat  ?  I  guess  I  must  ha'  waded  aboard  one 
of  the  lower  bay  fishing  steamers  yesterday  after 
noon  and  got  screwed  up,  and  they  put  me  to 
bunk.' 

"  Yet,  when  I  looked  around  again,  the  blamed 


56  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

stateroom  didn't  look  like  a  fishing  steamer  state 
room.  Moreover,  there  was  no  sea  in  the  lower 
bay  like  the  long  swell  this  craft  seemed  to  be 
ploughing  through. 

"'Well/  I  thought,  'I'm  just  taking  a  little 
voyage  to  Europe  for  my  health.  That  must  be 
it/ 

"The  mystery  of  the  thing  was  worse  than  the 
head,  which  was  bad  enough.  I  jumped  out  of  the 
bunk  and  did  the  old  act — went  through  my  clothes 
to  see  if  I  had  as  much  as  thirty-five  cents  or  so 
left.  I  went  through  all  the  regular  pockets — not 
a  sou-marquee. 

" '  This  is  nice/  I  thought.  c  I  can't  do  the  Con 
tinent,  if  that's  where  I'm  bound,  on  my  face. 
Moreover,  I  need  a  drink  pretty  bad  right  now.' 

"  As  a  last  resort,  I  reached  into  my  inside  vest 
pocket,  where  I  had  never  put  money.  My  hand 
struck  the  wad.  I  pulled  it  out — brown  and  green 
ones  still  there.  I  counted  it.  Five  hundred  and 
eighty-four  dollars ! 

"  Talk  about  your  chaps  getting  picked  off"  life 
rafts  in  midocean  !  Of  course,  I  couldn't  figure  it 
out  how  I  had  hung  on  to  it.  I  haven't  figured  it 
out  yet.  Neither  have  I  figured  it  out  how  my 
trunk  happened  to  be  underneath  my  bunk,  but 
there  it  was.  I  kicked  it  accidently,  and  when  I 


TALE  THE  THIRD  57 

looked  down,  there  was  the  trunk.  I  opened  it  up. 
It  was  all  nicely  packed  and  I  hadn't  left  anything 
behind.  I  thought  it  was  all  a  dream  and  I  won 
dered  why  I  didn't  wake  up.  I  saw  a  button  on 
the  wall  and  I  gave  it  a  shove,  just  to  see  who'd 
show  up  and  to  find  out  whither  bound,  and  so  on. 
A  darky  with  a  clean  white  coat  on  answered  the 
button.  I  yelled  at  him  to  come  in,  and  in  he 
came.  I  asked  him  to  tell  me,  on  the  level,  where 
I  happened  to  be. 

" '  I  know  I'm  on  a  boat,'  said  I,  '  but  what 
boat  ? ' 

"  '  Yo'  all  sut'nly  was  cheeahful  las'  night,  suh — 
sut'nly  cheeahful,'  said  the  darky  to  me,  grinning. 

" '  That's  all  right  about  the  cheerfulness/  said 
I,  '  but  what  I  want  to  know  is,  what  kind  of  a 
packet  is  this,  and  where's  she  going  ? ' 

"'Why,'  said  the  darky,  '  dis  yeah  steamuh's  de 
Comal  o'  de  Mallory  line,  an'  she's  boun*  fo'  Gal- 
veston.  We  dun  got  unduh  way  las'  evenin',  suh 
— an*  yo'  all  was  out  on  de  deck  singin'  ontil  one 
o'clock  dis  mawnin'.' 

"cNo;  I'm  damned  if  I  was/  says  I  to  the 
darky,  but  I  knew  he  was  telling  the  truth  all  the 
same.  But  I  wasn't  going  to  make  any  damaging 
admissions. 

"  Well,  I  had  the  man  bring  me  three  high  ones, 


58          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

to  sort  o'  get  me  around  to  a  deep-water  way  of 
thinking.  After  I  got  the  three  high  ones  -down  I 
had  things  straightened  out  in  my  head.  Why  not 
the  Comal  ?  What  was  the  matter  with  the 
Comal  ?  What  was  the  matter  with  Galveston  r 
Might  as  well  be  on  my  way  to  Galveston  as  any 
other  old  place.  So  I  touched  the  button  again, 
had  the  barber  come  and  shave  me  in  my  bunk, 
dressed,  took  three  more  high  ones,  and  got  out  of 
the  stateroom. 

"Say,  there  were  about  three  dozen  fellows 
lounging  around  the  decks,  and  dinged  if  every  one 
of  'em  didn't  say  to  me  when  I  showed  up  on 
deck  :  '  Hello,  there  pal !  '  or '  How  are  you,  Bill  ? ' 
or  '  How're  you  making  it  this  morning,  chum  ? ' 
or  something  like  that.  I  didn't  know  a  one  of 
'em  from  my  aunt  in  Maine  that  I  never  saw,  but 
they  were  thicker'n  thieves  with  me.  And  it  ap 
peared  that  I  had  been  the  same  with  them  the 
night  before  in  the  card-room  and  around  decks. 
Funny  game  that,  funny  game.  They  were  all 
pretty  nice  chaps,  too — most  of  'em  New  York 
drummers  setting  out  for  their  fall  campaigns  in 
the  Southwestern  territory.  We  had  three  high 
ones,  the  whole  bunch,  right  off,  and  the  voyage 
down  to  Galveston  began  to  strike  me  as  a  heap 
of  a  good  job.  Along  toward  afternoon  I  took  it 


TALE  THE  THIRD  59 

into  my  head  to  climb  the  foremast  rope  ladder  lead 
ing  up  to  the  main  yard.  I  climbed  it,  and  started 
to  swing  joyously  from  the  yard  by  my  hands. 
There  was  a  big  swell  on,  and  the  Comal  was  list 
ing  over  about  thirty-three  degrees  to  starboard 
and  to  port  in  the  swell,  and  when  I  looked  down 
to  the  deck  I  saw  all  hands  looking  up  with  white 
mugs.  I  decided  to  descend  then,  and  when  I 
got  down  I  found  the  skipper  with  a  pair  of  irons 
in  his  hand. 

"  '  If  you  try  that  on  again,*  said  he  to  me, '  I'll 
clap  these  on  to  your  wrists/ 

u '  Don't  take  it  to  heart  so,'  says  I  to  him,  and 
then  I  went  and  had  a  few  more  with  the  com 
mercial  travellers. 

"  Well,  that  trip  is  kind  o'  hazy  in  my  mind 
until  we  got  down  to  Key  West  and  tied  up  there 
for  twelve  hours.  I  remember  that  the  whole 
bunch  went  ashore  there,  and  the  beer  was  warm 
in  Key  West,  because  the  ice  steamer  was  a  week 
behind  schedule  time.  We  couldn't  hit  up  warm 
beer,  so  we  did  the  other  thing.  We  tore  Key 
West  apart  some,  but  I  don't  remember  getting 
aboard  the  Comal  again.  I  found  myself  aboard 
the  next  morning,  though,  and  on  that  morning  I 
started  in  to  play  poker  with  a  couple  o'  Maiden 
Lane  diamond  drummers.  They  took  it  off  me 


60  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

so  fast  that  I  felt  myself  catching  cold.  Same 
the  next  day.  Same,  also,  the  day  after  that.  On 
the  night  we  got  off  the  Galveston  bar,  to  wait 
there  until  morning  for  a  high  tide  to  let  us  into 
the  harbor,  I  counted  over  my  bundle.  I  had  six 
dollars. 

" '  That  ain't  much  to  begin  life  anew  three 
and  a  half  thousand  miles  from  New  York,'  I 
thought,  '  but  it's  got  to  go.  I've  got  the  front — 
meaning  my  layout  of  togs — left  anyhow.' 

"  I  went  ashore  with  the  gang  the  next  morning, 
and  the  blank  begins  here  for  another  twenty-four 
hours.  I  guess  I  must  ha'  gone  around  some  with 
those  commercial  travellers.  The  next  morning, 
when  I  woke  up,  the  low  monotone  of  the  sea 
was  in  my  ears  ;  also,  there  was  wet  sand  in  my 
hair,  and  the  sun  was  shining  hard  in  my  face.  I 
sat  up.  The  Gulf  of  Mexico  was  right  in  front 
of  me.  I  looked  behind.  There  was  a  big  hotel 
there.  It  looked  something  like  the  Oriental  Ho 
tel  down  at  Adanhattan  Beach.  There  was  a  sign 
on  it,  '  Beach  Hotel.'  I  dug  into  my  pockets, 
looking  for  the  necessary  dime.  It  wasn't  there. 
Nothing  was  there.  I  was  lying  on  the  sands  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  in  front  of  the  Beach  Hotel, 
broke,  without  even  the  price  of  a  ride  into  Gal 
veston  on  one  of  the  dinky  mule-hauled  street  cars. 


TALE  THE  THIRD  61 

That's  why,  as  I  said  at  the  outset,  I  looked  at  the 
Beach   Hotel  so  disapprovingly  on  this  occasion. 

"  I  dusted  the  sand  off  my  clothes  and  walked 
over  to  a  fountain  spigot  in  front  of  the  hotel  and 
took  a  drink  of  water.  Yes,  water  !  It  was  hard, 
but  it  had  to  go.  Then  I  hunted  around  for  the 
street-car  track.  Galveston  was  two  miles  away, 
but  I  had  to  make  Galveston.  There  wasn't  any 
car  in  sight,  so  I  took  the  track.  I  didn't  have  the 
price  of  a  fare,  anyhow.  The  track  was  under 
water,  from  floods,  most  of  the  way  in.  I 
walked  through  brackish  Gulf  water  full  of  tadpoles 
and  soft-shell  crabs  all  the  way  in.  I  didn't  have 
anything  particular  in  view  when  I  struck  Galves 
ton,  but  I  wanted  to  get  there,  anyhow,  for  the 
Beach  Hotel,  I  figured,  was  full  o'  happy  seashore 
vacationizing  people,  and  as  I  wasn't  happy  my 
self  I  didn't  want  to  see  them.  On  the  way  into 
Galveston  I  mapped  it  out  that  I  wasn't  going  to 
do  any  telegraphing  back  here  for  funds,  even  if  I 
had  to  drive  a  truck.  Talking  about  trucks,  as  I 
was  nearing  Galveston  I  passed  a  whole  lot  o'  cir 
cus  tents.  I  prowled  in  among  them  and  got  talk 
ing  to  a  tentman.  He  said  it  was  Forepaugh's 
show.  I  asked  him  where  the  show  was  going 
from  Galveston  and  he  said  it  was  going  to  close 
up  and  go  straight  back  to  Philadelphia.  I  asked 


62          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

him  how  it  would  be  for  a  job.  He  sent  me  to 
one  of  the  head  guys,  and  I  offered  to  feed  the 
zebras  and  do  other  useful  chores  in  return  for  a 
ride  with  the  show  to  Philadelphia.  He  turned  me 
down  and  I  kept  on  into  town. 

"  When  I  got  into  town  a  sign  that  i  saw  over 
a  saloon  looked  vaguely  familiar  to  me.  '  The 
Two  Brothers'  Saloon '  it  read.  I  kind  o'  recalled 
having  been  in  that  place  with  some  of  the  drum 
mers  on  the  day  before,  when  we  got  off  the  Comal. 
So  I  went  in,  not  because  I  had  the  price  of  any 
thing,  but  I  just  went  in  anyhow.  It  was  about 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  no  customers  were 
in  the  place,  which  was  a  pretty  swell  rum  joint, 
with  a  piano  in  the  back  part  of  the  room.  One 
of  the  c  Two  Brothers  '  was  behind  the  bar — that 
is,  I  found  out  afterward  that  he  was  one  of  the 
Two  Brothers. 

"  c  Hello,  there,  pal,'  says  he  to  me  as  I  walked 
in,  '  how're  you  cuttin'  it  this  morning  ?  ' 

"  I  told  him  there  was  nothing  doing,  and  sat 
down  at  a  table,  for  I  was  tired  with  the  trudge  in 
from  the  Beach  Hotel.  The  man  behind  the  bar 
sized  me  up,  and  he  walked  over  to  where  I  sat. 

"  '  Up  against  it,  eh,  chum  ?  '  said  he  to  me. 
1  Better  have  a  couple  to  sort  o'  jerk  yourself  to 
gether.' 


TALE  THE  THIRD  63 

"  They  tasted  pretty  good,  I'm  a-telling  you. 
I  went  back  to  where  the  piano  stood,  and  sat 
down  on  the  stool.  They'd  made  me  practice  four 
hours  a  day  on  the  piano  when  I  was  a  kid,  and  I 
was  a  pretty  good  player.  Well,  I  felt  pretty 
woozy  and  down  in  the  mouth,  and  so,  naturally, 
I  started  in  to  play  Schubert's  c  Serenade,'  and  that 
sort,  with  the  soft  pedal  down.  I  was  playing 
away  at  this  kind  of  music,  thinking  pretty  hard  of 
the  jay  I  was,  when  the  man  behind  the  bar 
touched  me  on  the  shoulder. 

"  '  Pard,'  said  he,  '  I'm  one  of  the  proprietors  of 
this  shack,  and  I'm  going  to  make  you  a  proposi 
tion.  You  say  you're  up  against  it,  even  if  you 
are  one  of  these  here  wise  boys  from  New  York, 
and  I  guess  you  are  up  against  it.  You  seem  to 
know  how  to  twiddle  that  py-ano  to  the  queen's 
taste.  Tell  you  what  I'll  do.  I  need  some  one 
to  play  on  that  machine.  If  you'll  hammer  tunes 
out  of  it,  say  from  nine  o'clock  at  night  until  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  I'll  give  you  five  dollars  for 
every  night's  work  you  do,  and  pay  your  way  down 
here  besides.  What  do  you  think  of  it  ?  ' 

"  What  did  I  think  of  it !  I  wasn't  missing  any 
win-out  chance  like  that. 

"  c  It's  a  go,'  I  told  him. 

u  He   took   me  across   the   way  to  the  Girardin 


64          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

House,  one  of  the  bang-up  hotels  of  Galveston, 
and  put  me  up  there.  Then  he  went  down  to  the 
Mallory  dock  and  had  my  trunk  sent  up  to  the 
hotel.  I  togged  out  and  turned  up  at  the  '  Two 
Brothers '  ahead  of  time.  There  were  about  two 
hundred  of  the  Galveston  men  down  there.  The 
word  had  gone  around  that  a  '  Howling  Thing  ' 
from  New  York  had  been  engaged  to  play  the 
piano  nightly  at  the  '  Two  Brothers,'  and  the  boys 
were  on  hand.  I  played.  They  sat  around  and 
gave  me  the  laugh,  but  I  didn't  mind  that  a  little 
bit.  I  earned  my  five  all  right  that  first  night. 

"  The  next  morning  the  Galveston  News  was 
sprinkled  all  over  with  small  ads.  like  this : 

" c  Come  down  to  the  Two  Brothers'  Saloon  to 
night  and  hear  the  Hot  Boy  from  New  York  hit 
up  the  piano/ 

" '  Drop  in  at  the  Two  Brothers'  Saloon  to 
night  and  have  a  look  at  the  Warm  Baby  from  the 
effete  East  hammer  the  keys.' 

"  '  The  Howlingest  Thing  that  ever  struck  this 
community  will  sock  it  to  the  harpsichord  at  the 
Two  Brothers'  Saloon  to-night.' 

u  c  To  get  the  latest  effect  in  pants,  as  worn  by 
a  Chile  Con  Carne  from  up  York  way,  drop 
in  at  the  Two  Brothers'  Saloon  to-night.  The 
Chile  Con  Carne  plays  the  piano,  too.' 


TALE  THE  THIRD  65 

"  The  laugh  ?  Did  I  get  the  laugh  ?  I  didn't 
mind  it,  though.  I  didn't  know  anybody  in  Gal- 
veston,  and  nobody  in  Galveston  knew  me.  The 
only  inconvenient  feature  of  it  was  when  the  boys 
from  the  ranges  used  to  drop  in  once  in  a  while. 
A  good  many  of  'em  'ud  come  to  Galveston,  in 
stead  of  going  to  Dallas  or  San  Antone,  to  blow  in 
their  wages  after  round-ups.  They  didn't  have  it 
in  for  me  at  all,  but  they  just  occasionaly  shot  a 
smoke  out  of  my  teeth  as  I  smoked  and  played. 

"  I  got  my  five-dollar  bill  every  night  when  I 
knocked  ofF  work,  and  I  guess  I  must  ha'  brought 
a  lot  of  good  trade  to  that  joint,  which  was,  in  fact, 
the  best  gin  mill  in  the  town  of  Galveston.  I 
tapered  down  to  about  ten  a  day,  too,  and  after  I 
had  been  playing  the  piano  at  the  Two  Brothers' 
for  an  even  month,  I  got  to  thinking  about  Sixth 
avenue  one  night.  So  I  quit.  On  the  level,  the 
Two  Brothers  were  dead  sore  on  me  for  quitting, 
but  when  they  found  I  was  bent  on  it  they  made 
the  best  of  it.  When  I  took  the  train  for  New 
York  they  sent  me  a  case  of  wine,  and " 

"  I  don't  see  any  hard  luck,  due  to  alcoholic  de 
generacy,  in  that  story,"  interrupted  No.  7. 


TALE  THE  FOURTH 


IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  24  PEDDLETH  FEATHER 
FLOWERS,  AND  RESORTETH  TO  YE  SPORT  OF 
KINGS 


TALE  THE  FOURTH 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.  24  PEDDLETH  FEATHER 
FLOWERS,  AND  RESORTETH  TO  YE  SPORT  OF 
KINGS 

"WHEN  I  decided  that  time  to  jump  Slopeville 
and  line  out  for  the  eastern  seaboard — it  was  in  the 
summer  of  '95 — I  had  $450,  enough  glad  rags  to 
stock  a  second-hand  store,  several  Kimberley 
rocks  and  a  straight  aqua  record  of  four  months  be 
hind  me,"  said  Ex-Tank  No.  24,  the  theatrical 
member  of  the  Harlem  Club  of  Former  Alcoholic 
Degenerates.  "  San  Francisco  in  summer  is  as 
dead  as  West  Broadway  at  I  A.  M.,  and  there  was 
nothing  doing  in  my  line.  I  felt  so  rich,  anyhow, 
that  I  wanted  'em  all  to  see  how  I  shaped  up  back 
here  in  the  old  parish,  for  when  I'd  struck  out 
from  New  York  in  the  wake  of  the  setting  sun  a 
bit  over  a  year  before,  I  was  holding  them  up  with 
horseshoe  nails  instead  of  buttons,  and  my  shoes 
were  tied  with  copper  wire.  So  I  decided  to 
prance  in  here,  all  pinked  up,  and  daze  'em  up 
around  Thirty-fourth  street  with  my  blue-white 


70          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

boulders,  creased  wardrobe  and  the  browny-green 
Government-stamped  slips  of  paper  kertish  where 
with  to  buy  in  cases  of  emergency.  Oh,  bright 
and  gladsome  dream !  oh,  tender  and  touching 
fancy.  Oh,  rosy  and " 

"  Eliminate  that !  "  shouted  Ex-Tank  No.  7,  the 
parliamentarian  and  kicker,  jumping  to  his  feet. 
"Just  delete  that  'cello  obligate!  You're  not 
hurling  a  slow-music  spiel  at  a  bunch  of  c  Ingo- 
mar'  and  'Ticket  o'  Leave  Man '  tie  counters. 
Get  out  of  the  limelight  and  give  us  a  plain, 
unvar " 

"The  Sergeant-at-Arms  will  subject  No.  7  to 
fifteen  minutes  of  our  new  corrective  electrical 
treatment  for  buckers  and  interrupters,"  said  the 
Chief  Ex-Tank,  rising  and  frowning  severely. 
When  No.  6  was  dragged  from  the  room  to  the 
Chamber  of  Correction,  "  The  Ham,  No.  24,  will 
now  resume,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank. 

"  Well,  I  didn't  put  the  scheme  over  the  plate, 
anyhow,"  continued  No.  24.  "  I  dug  up  for  a 
through  ticket  to  New  York,  with  parlor-car 
coupons,  and  then  I  went  out  to  the  Cliff  House 
to  pipe  off  the  seals  on  the  rocks  just  once  more. 
Now  if  I  hadn't  ha'  done  that — well,  anyway,  I 
met  up  with  a  bridge-and-trestle  drummer  there 
that  I'd  had  a  vortex  with  down  in  Los  Angeles 


TALE  THE  FOURTH  71 

about  nine  months  before,  and  says  he,  when  we 
sat  down  to  dinner  in  a  cozy  corner  in  the  glass 
front  overlooking  the  amethyst  sea : 

" l  Regard  me,  mate.  Study  me  closely.  I've 
been  riding  the  ice  wagon  for  four  months  to  a 
day.  I  have  been  up  the  pole  for  one  hundred  and 
twenty  and  odd  days.  This  is  where  I  slide  down 
for  a  brief,  fleeting  spell.' 

" '  Shocking  ! '  said  I.  c  Away,  man  of  weak 
will !  Hence,  creature  of  tadpole  mentality  !  ' 

"  Then  we  ordered  Martinis,  and  after  that  a 
couple  more  rounds,  so's  the  dinner'd  set  right. 

"  During  the  dinner  we  had  two  quarts  each  of 
the  golden  geyser  product,  and  by  the  time  we  got 
to  the  cognac  and  coffee  we  were  alternately  sym 
pathizing  mournfully  with  the  seals  on  account  of 
their  monotonous  lives  on  the  rocks,  dwelling  upon 
the  merriness  of  existence,  and  informing  each 
other  of  our  top-notch  qualities  in  our  respective 
lines. 

"  The  little  old  voice,  however,  hummed  in  my 
ear,  '  Son,  the  main  burg  that  you've  got  the  ticket 
for  is  six  days  due  east,  and  this  is  a  bum  start 
you're  making.  Get  contiguous  to  yourself;  other 
wise,  if  you  ever  get  started  at  all,  you'll  only  last 
half-way  of  the  trip,  where  you'll  have  to  drop  off 
and  be  sad  with  yourself  for  many  days  and  scurry 


72          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

for  another  bunch  wherewith  to  land  in  the  town 
of  your  soul.  Take  a  drop  to  the  pulp-headedness 
of  this/ 

"  '  Go  ay-way,'  I  replied  to  the  little  old  voice, 
c  you  know  not  whereof  you  croak.  This  may  be 
the  last  time  I  shall  gaze  upon  the  wine-dark 
Pacific.  Begrudge  me  not  the  three  Pacifies  which 
I  now  see.  This  night  shall  I  make  wassail,  and 
on  the  morrow  I  shall  awaken  in  a  Turkish  bath, 
grieved,  mayhap,  but  ready  to  join  the  east-bound 
caravan  at  Oakland.  Meanwhile,  lemme  alone/ 

"Whereupon  the  little  old  voice,  after  a  few 
weak  growls,  became  silent.  I  don't  remember 
when  or  where  I  lost  the  bridge-and-trestle  drum 
mer,  but  I  lost  him.  And  lo  !  I  did  awaken  on 
the  morrow  in  a  Turkish  bath  in  San  Francisco. 
The  sun  was  high  in  the  dome. 

"  '  Count,'  said  I  to  the  Danish  nobleman  who 
had  rubbed  me  and  who  fanned  me  awake,  '  at 
what  witching  hour  did  I  come  alongside  this 
frigate  and  board  it  ?  ' 

"  At  four  o'clock  that  morning,  the  nobleman  in 
formed  me. 

"  '  And  was  I  littered  with  jewels  and  precious 
stones  ? '  I  inquired  of  him.  *  Did  I  deposit  large 
moneys  with  the ' 

u  The  member  of  the  Danish  nobility  disappeared 


TALE  THE  FOURTH  73 

for  a  moment,  and  when  he  returned  he  told  me 
that  not  only  were  my  shiny  pebbles  intact  in  an 
envelope  at  the  desk,  but  that  there  was  a  matter 
of  $300  deposited  to  my  account. 

"  This,  gentlemen,  happened  in  San  Francisco, 
you  are  to  remember.  I  am  thinking  of  sending 
an  account  of  it  to  the  Society  for  the  Collection 
and  Publication  of  Narratives  of  Extraordinary  and 
Unaccountable  Occurrences. 

" c  I'll  start  East  to-morrow  morning,'  I  said  to 
myself,  as  I  got  my  clothes  on,  '  spending  the  day 
here  in  meditation  and  reflection  upon  the  evils  of 
the  Bowl/ 

"  Then  I  walked  idly  down  to  the  water  front  to 
get  up  an  appetite  for  breakfast.  There  was  a 
gang  near  the  Clay  street  wharf  and  I  crossed  over 
to  see  wherefore.  A  couple  of  'longshoremen  in 
a  boat  were  pulling  a  drowned  man  out  of  the 
water.  The  drowned  man  had  been  in  the  water 
for  some  time. 

"  That  got  on  my  nerves.  I  reflected  that  I 
might  have  been 

"  Well,  one  little  green  frappe  isn't  going  to  stand 
me  on  my  head,'  I  concluded,  and  I  rode  up  to  the 
Palace  and  got  it.  Then  I  had  twelve  more.  The 
next  morning  the  Danish  nobleman  fanned  me 
awake  in  a  room  at  the  Turkish  bath,  informing 


74          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

me,  at  the  same  time,  that  all  of  my  glitterers  and 
some  $250  in  converted  quartz  were  in  an  envelope 
with  my  name  on  it  at  the  desk.  As  to  how  this 
happened,  I  pass.  I  always  side-step  deep  ones. 

"  '  To-morrow  morning,'  said  I  to  myself,  4 1 
will  hie  me  to  Oakland,  board  the  train,  and  start 
for  the  East,  where  dawn  begins.  This  day  shall 
I  spend  in  contemplation  of  the  Horrors  of  Rum/ 

"  Whereupon  I  called  for  a  morning  paper  where 
with  to  beguile  the  sad  half-hour  of  awakening. 
The  paper  contained  grewsome  pictures  of  the 
bodies  of  two  young  women  who  had  been  mur 
dered  in  a  San  Francisco  church,  one  of  the  bodies 
having  been  discovered  in  the  belfry. 

u  The  pictures  set  me  a-quiver,  and  I  touched 
the  button  for  a  basin  of  the  green  frappe.  The 
next  morning  the  Danish  nobleman  fanned  me 
awake  at  the  Turkish  bath,  conveying,  at  the  same 
time,  the  information  that,  while  I  was  still  in 
possession  of  my  crystals,  my  wealth  in  the  office 
envelope  amounted  to  some  three  dollars  only,  not 
including  the  value  of  my  ticket  to  New  York. 

"  After  that  it  is  all  a  shadowy,  dusky  dream. 
When  I  happened  to,  a  couple  of  weeks  later,  in 
a  room  in  a  hotel-saloon  in  Stockton,  I  found  a 
bunch  of  familiar-looking  tickets  in  my  inside  vest 
pocket.  They  indicated  various  sums  which  a 


TALE  THE  FOURTH  75 

three-bulb  plant  in  San  Francisco  had  dished  out  to 
me  for  my  sundry  and  divers  De  Beers  shiners. 
These  sums,  I  ascertained  after  a  close  search  of 
my  clothing,  had  all  been  expended  with  the  excep 
tion  of  sixty  cents.  It  appeared,  likewise,  that  I 
had  cashed  my  ticket  for  New  York,  doubtless  at 
a  heavy  discount,  for  it  was  absent.  My  trunk  and 
two  grips  were  in  the  room.  I  didn't  remember 
how  it  happened  to  be  Stockton.  I'd  never  been 
in  Stockton  in  my  life.  I'd  never  hankered  to  go 
to  Stockton.  But  it  was  Stockton,  for  a  cinch. 
The  boy  that  answered  my  ring  told  me  so  him 
self.  Before  he  came  and  told  me,  I  was  clutching 
at  the  fond  hope  that  the  derned  place  might  acci 
dentally  happen  to  be  South  street  in  New  York, 
that  I'd  made  the  leap  across  the  continent  unbe 
knownst,  so  to  speak,  but  not  so,  Bassanio ;  it  was 
Stockton,  which  is  a  morgue-burg  on  the  San 
Joaquin  River,  one  night's  ride  from  San  Francisco 
on  stern-wheel  boats,  although  trains  hesitate  there, 
too. 

"  Sixty  cents  ?  It  was  up  to  me.  I  pasted  one 
of  the  suits  in  and  got  three  dollars  on  it,  resolving 
that  it  would  be  the  last.  I  got  three  dollars  on 
another  suit  the  next  day.  The  next  day  I  got 
three  dollars  on  another  suit.  Three  dollars  I  got 
on  another  suit  the  following  day.  On  another 


76          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

suit  I  got  three  dollars  the  day  after  that.  I  had 
eight  suits,  besides  the  good  one  that  I  kept  on  my 
frame.  I  managed  to  live  on  three  dollars  a  day 
for  eight  days.  It  is  marvellous  how  cheaply  a 
man  can  live  when  he  has  to.  On  the  ninth  day  I 
woke  up  about  noon,  and  I  needed  a  basin  bad.  I 
got  it  on  my  face,  for  the  barkeeper  downstairs  had 
become  quite  chummy  with  me.  Three  dollars  a 
day  is  big  money  in  Stockton.  Then  I  wandered 
into  the  hotel  office  to  get  a  chair  and  study  over 
the  differences  between  being  in  New  York  with 
about  $300,  royal  raiment,  and  transparent  car 
bons,  and  being  in  Stockton,  California,  broke.  I 
didn't  intend  to  return  to  San  Francisco,  anyhow. 
I  had  made  elaborate  adieus  there,  preparatory  to 
my  departure  for  the  East,  and  I  felt  that  I  couldn't 
stand  for  the  Indians  that  I'd  said  good-bye  to  danc 
ing  around  me  with  hoarse  hoots  and  derisive  gloats. 
A  crafty-looking  grafter  took  a  seat  beside  me. 

'"Wherefore  the  gloom  ? '  he  asked  me,  cheerily. 

"CI  just  found  my  last  cigarette  broken  in  my 
pocket,'  said  I,  witheringly.  I  didn't  feel  talky  at 
all. 

" '  So  bad  as  all  that  ?  '  said  the  grafter,  good- 
naturedly.  4  Nothing  doing  ?  Broke  ? ' 

"  *  Go  to  the  devil,'  said  I. 

" '  I'd  already  went,  until  I  struck  this  feather- 


TALE  THE  FOURTH  77 

flowers'  graft,'  said  he,  unresentfully.  '  Now  I'm 
getting  the  cush.  Want  to  come  in  ?  I  need  a 
man  for  Sacramento/ 

"  I  looked  the  guy  over  then,  and  while  I  was 
doing  so  he  told  me  about  the  feather-flowers. 
They  were  roses  made  of  tiny  feathers,  exact  imi 
tations  of  the  real  thing.  Chinks  down  in  'Frisco 
made  'em  for  him  for  ten  cents  a  bunch.  He  had 
people  selling  'em  in  stores,  chiefly  emporiums  de 
booze,  all  over  the  state,  for  a  dollar  a  throw,  in 
neat  little  wire  baskets. 

" c  My  man  in  Sacramento  has  proved  himself  a 
dead  one  by  running  it  up  all  the  time  and  neglect 
ing  business,'  the  grafter  went  on.  c  Now,  you 
look  like  a  clean,  sober  young  fellow.  Want  that 
Sacramento  territory  ?  Give  you  forty  cents  for 
every  bunch  of  'em  you  sell  for  a  dollar.' 

u  '  You're  on,'  said  I. 

"  So  I  went  up  to  Sacramento  with  the  cheerful 
grafter  that  night,  and  the  next  day  I  was  peddling 
wire  baskets  filled  with  bunches  of  feather  roses. 
I  passed  up  all  the  flagons  that  came  my  way — I'd 
got  the  frigid  pedals  all  of  a  sudden  that  morning 
in  the  Stockton  Hotel  office,  when  I  thought  of  the 
girls  rolling  around  in  the  surf  at  Manhattan  Beach, 
and  me  at  the  other  end  of  the  route — and  I  sold 
thirteen  of  the  bunches  the  first  day.  That  made 


y8          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

$5.20  as  my  rake-off.  The  grafter  patted  me  on 
the  back,  told  me  that  I  was  a  wonder  and  in 
formed  me  that  it  was  on  the  cards  that  he'd  use 
me  in  the  business  as  far  east  as  New  York,  if 
I  kept  on  making  out  so  well.  I  told  him  to 
sharpen  up  his  yen-hok. 

"'When  I  land  in  New  York,'  I  told  him,  Til 
have  the  congealed  dewdrops  on  me  and  the  en 
graved  paper  in  my  duster,  or  I  don't  go  at  all.' 

"The  next  day  I  talked  seventeen  barkeepers 
and  other  weak-minded  persons  into  buying  bun 
dles  of  feather  roses.  I  worked  Sacramento  for  a 
week,  and  averaged  five  dollars  a  day.  At  the  end 
of  a  week  I  had  fifteen  dollars,  after  paying  board 
and  other  expenses.  I'd  had  the  dogs  sicked  on 
me  a  good  many  times,  but  I  couldn't  get  used  to 
the  slammed  door  and  the  occasional  threatening 
bungstarter.  So  I  gave  the  cheerful  grafter  the 
parting  mitt — he  emitted  a  sigh  over  losing  me — 
and  the  next  morning,  shined  and  shaved,  and  with 
a  scheme  in  my  lid,  I  took  a  train  for  San  Fran 
cisco.  I  wouldn't  have  returned  to  San  Francisco 
if  it  hadn't  been  for  this  scheme,  which  I  thought 
out  all  of  a  sudden,  after  overhearing  a  couple  of 
wise-looking  geezers  talking  in  one  of  the  gin 
mills  where  I'd  been  peddling  feather  roses  the  day 
before. 


TALE  THE  FOURTH  79 

" '  I'm  going  to  wire  a  check  or  two  down  to 
Sausalito  to  be  put  on  Long  Bridge  to-morrow,'  I 
heard  one  of  these  chaps  say.  c  He's  been  running 
like  a  mud-turtle  lately,  but  he's  good  enough  to 
beat  any  of  the  little  bunch  of  four  he's  in  with 
to-morrow  if  he's  right,  and  as  he'll  be  the  bum 
outsider  I'm  going  to  spin  a  few  chips  on  him.' 

"  Queer,  isn't  it,  that  way  out  in  a  bit  of  a  burg 
like  Sacramento,  something  like  4,000  miles  from 
New  York,  you  should  hear  a  duck  talking  so  fa 
miliarly  about  races  being  run  off  at  Brighton 
Beach  ?  This  fellow's  spiel  got  the  horse  bug  to 
buzzing  beneath  the  hat  again,  and  that's  when  I 
thought  out  my  scheme.  I  figured  that  any  old 
thing  would  beat  peddling  feather  roses. 

u  I  got  into  San  Francisco  about  noon,  and  I 
just  caught  the  Tiburon,  one  of  the  ferryboats  that 
used  to  take  the  gang  of  plungers  and  pikers  over 
the  bay  to  the  pool-room  at  Sausalito.  My  front 
measured  up  all  right.  I'd  hung  on  to  the  top- 
notch  suit  in  the  progress  of  those  three-bulb  visi 
tations  with  the  other  togs  in  Stockton,  and  I  al 
ways  was  a  powerful  supporter  of  the  spotless 
linen  and  the  shine  and  the  shave  under  any  and 
all  circumstances.  They're  indispensable.  I  knew 
the  people  behind  the  desk  at  the  pool-room  well. 
I  worked  for  them  for  nearly  a  year ;  they  didn't 


8o          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

pay  me  wages,  but  I  worked  for  them ;  they  got 
the  wages  that  other  people  paid  me.  And  I  went 
over  there  this  time  with  the  intention  of  getting 
a  hatful  of  money  or  of  getting  pounded  to 
death. 

"  This  Long  Bridge  race  that  I'd  heard  the  wise- 
looking  guy  in  Sacramento  talking  about  was  the 
fourth  on  the  card.  There  were  only  four  in  it — 
Paladin,  opening  at  5  to  2  and  being  played  down 
at  the  track  to  8  to  5  ;  Declare,  opening  at  evens 
and  going  up  to  7  to  5  ;  Little  Matt,  opening  at  3 
and  going  up  to  7  to  2,  and  the  rank  outsider, 
Long  Bridge,  opening  at  10  and  drifting  up  to 
20  to  I. 

"  I  sat  in  a  rocking-chair  and  looked  the  board 
over.  I  had  ten  dollars  in  one  dollar  bills  in  my 
pocket.  I  wasn't  going  to  invest  any  of  that,  but 
was  going  to  use  them  as  props.  I  was  going, 
however,  to  bet  $100  on  Long  Bridge  at  20  to  I 
and  take  a  chance  on  being  crunched  to  a  pulp  if 
the  mutt  lost  the  race. 

"  I  waited  near  the  desk  until  the  telegraph  in 
strument  began  to  click. 

" c  Off  at  Brighton  Beach  ! '  the  operator  an 
nounced.  '  Paladin  in  the  lead,  Declare  second, 
Little  Matt  third  ! ' 

"  I  rushed  up  to  the  ticket-writer  with  my  ten 


TALE  THE  FOURTH  81 

dollars  in  one  dollar  bills  in  my  fist,  starting  to 
strip  them  off,  but  carefully  concealing  their  de 
nominations  from  view. 

" c  I'll  bet  you  a  hundred  on  Long  Bridge,'  I 
said  to  the  ticket-writer,  who  knew  me  well. 

"  c  Paladin  at  the  quarter,  Declare  second,  Little 
Matt  third  ! '  the  operator  was  announcing. 

"'  You're  on,'  said  the  ticket-writer,  giving  me 
a  slow  smile,  and  beginning  to  write  the  ticket. 
'That's  like  taking  candy  from  a  child.  The 
mutt  won't  be  one,  two,  three.' 

u  All  the  time  I  was  slowly  stripping  bills  from 
that  little  bundle  of  one-spots,  and  attentively 
watching  the  operator's  lips  at  the  same  time.  The 
ticket-writer  was  a  good  deal  interested  in  the  out 
come  of  the  race  himself,  having  a  bit  of  a  bet 
down,  probably,  and  he'd  only  half-finished  writ 
ing  my  ticket  when  he  gave  a  whoop  and  yelled, 
'Go  it,  Paladin!' 

"  I  held  my  money  in  my  hand,  carefully  con 
cealing  the  numbers,  so  that  the  ticket-writer  had 
no  means  of  knowing  whether  I  had  a  fistful  of 
centuries  or  not.  He  was  considerably  interested 
in  the  race,  anyhow. 

u  c  Paladin  at  the  half,  Declare  second,  Little 
Matt  third  ! '  announced  the  telegrapher. 

"  '  Here's  where  I  go  to  an  early  grave,'  thought 


82  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

I,  at  the  same  time  keeping  one  lamp  on  the  door, 
intending  to  make  a  bolt  for  it,  anyhow. 

" c  Paladin  in  the  stretch  by  a  length,  Declare 
second,  Little  Matt  third  !  '  croaked  the  operator. 

"  c  I  am  so  young  to  die/  I  reflected,  wondering, 
at  the  same  time  how  good  the  pool-room  people 
were  on  the  sprint. 

"  '  Long  Bridge  wins  ! '  shouted  the  operator,  a 
note  of  strong  surprise  in  his  voice. 

"  I  felt  my  knees  giving  way  beneath  me,  and 
I'll  bet  I  was  white  around  the  gills  all  right.  But 
I  kept  myself  together. 

" '  Hully  gee,  where  did  you  get  that  one  ? — 
the  dog  ran  a  rank  last  the  last  time  out !  '  said  the 
ticket-writer,  looking  at  me  wonderingly. 

" '  Oh,'  said  I,  calmly,  '  a  friend  of  mine,  one  of 
the  trainers  at  the  Beach,  wired  me  that  one  this 
morning.  Wish  I'd  put  another  hundred  on  it.' 

"  The  operator  finished  writing  my  $2,000  to 
$100  ticket  where  he'd  left  off  in  the  excitement 
of  hearing  the  race  called  off. 

"  '  Say,'  said  I  to  the  ticket-writer,  with  all  the 
sangfroid  I  could  muster,  c  the  lowest  I've  got  here 
is  one  of  the  five-hundred  dollar  boys.  Just  pass 
the  word  along  to  the  cashier  that  there's  only  two 
thousand  coming  to  me,  will  you,  and  it'll  save  you 
changing  a  bill  ? ' 


TALE  THE  FOURTH  83 

"  The  ticket-writer,  as  I  said,  knew  me  well. 

"  c  O.  K.,'  said  he.  c  Jimmy,'  addressing  the 
messenger  boy  behind  the  desk,  ctell  the  cashier  that 
there's  only  $2,OOO  instead  of  $2,100,  coming  to 
the  holder  of  ticket  942.  Tell  him  we're  shy  of 
change  here.' 

"Then  the  ticket-writer,  flicking  me  my  ticket, 
began  to  throw  the  congratulations  into  me,  and 
in  two  minutes  it  was  all  over  the  room  that  I'd 
yanked  down  $2,ooo  on  Long  Bridge's  win.  I 
took  it  all  as  if  the  raking  down  of  that  much 
quartz  was  an  everyday  matter  with  me,  but  my 
heart  was  up  in  my  throat — and  say,  didn't  I  see 
the  c  Swept  by  Ocean  Breezes '  sign  then  ! 

"Twenty  minutes  later  I  was  sitting  on  the 
hurricane  deck  of  the  Tiburon,  bound  back  for 
San  Francisco,  with  $2,010  in  my  homespuns. 
As  soon  as  I  got  off  the  boat  I  went  directly  to  the 
hotel  where  I'd  been  stopping  most  of  the  time  I 
spent  in  San  Francisco.  The  clerk  looked  me  over 
as  if  I  was  a  ghost. 

"  l  Say,  where  the  dickens  have  you  been  ? '  he 
asked  me.  '  Why  haven't  you  been  to  me  for  that 
money  ? ' 

"  c  What  money  ?  '  I  asked  him. 

" '  That  two  hundred  you  left  with  me  for  safe 
keeping  one  night  a  few  weeks  ago  when  you  were 


84          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

soused  ?  Said  you  were  going  to  a  Turkish  bath, 
and  that  you  were  afraid  you  might  get  touched 
somewhere  or  other.  Then  you  disappeared,  and 
we've  had  the  sleuths  on  the  lookout  for  you  for  a 
week.  Thought  you'd  been  sandbagged  and 
thrown  into  the  bay,  or  something  like  that.  Here's 
your  two  hundred.' 

"  Two  hundred  dollars  of  my  cush  in  the  hands 
of  a  hotel  clerk,  and  I'd  been  peddling  feather- 
roses  in  Sacramento  ! 

"  Ten  days  later  I  was  lending  'em  all  two-dollar 
bills  to  get  their  laundry  out — the  old  bunch  up 
here — and " 

"  Oh,  Listen  to  the  Ham  !  "  chorused  the  Harlem 
Club  of  Former  Alcoholic  Degenerates,  and  the 
meeting  was  at  an  end. 


TALE  THE  FIFTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  15  VISITETH  YE  HOME 
OF  His  BOYHOOD,  AND  THUS  WINNETH  OUT 


TALE  THE  FIFTH 

WHEREIN   EX-TANK    NO.    15    VISITETH    YE  HOME    OF 
HIS  BOYHOOD,  AND  THUS  WINNETH  OUT 

"  WHICH  I  think  I  may  say,  without  fear  of  a 
call-down,  that  this  thing  of  going  back  to  your 
old  boyhood  home  is  a  pretty  hard  one  to  put  over 
the  plate,  and  it's  usually  a  frost  at  that  when  you 
do  finally  get  there,"  remarked  Ex-Tank  No.  15, 
after  the  ceremonies  attending  the  initiation  of 
three  new  members  had  been  completed.  "I  sup 
pose  there  isn't  a  fellow  here  who  hasn't  had  a 
hunch  to  go  back  to  the  old  place  and  have  a  look 
around  at " 

u  Wait  a  minute,"  interrupted  No.  7,  the  par 
liamentarian  and  kicker.  "  I  want  ,to  ask  the 
Chief  Ex-Tank  if  he  doesn't  think  there's  been  a 
whole  lot  too  much  sentimental  gush  at  these  ex 
perience  meetings  lately.  At  me  old  boyhood 
home,  down  on  the  farm,  or  in  the  dell,  or  out  in 
the  woods,  or  on  the  water  front,  or  in  a  blooming 
cave,  for  that  matter,  who  wants  to  listen  to  a  lot 
o'  slush  like  that  ?  I  submit  that  it  sounds  too 
87 


88  TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

much  like  beery  ballads  from  the  go-off.  What's 
Fifteen's  boyhood  home  got  to  do  with  rum  ? 
Where  does  red-eye  break  into  a  man's  hunch  to 
sneak  back  to  his  old  boyhood  home  and " 

"No.  Seven  is  fined  a  round  dozen  vichy-ancl- 
milks  for  interposing  unreasonable  objections," 
said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank,  peremptorily.  "Al 
coholism  is  inseparably  mixed  with  any  man's  de 
sire  to  return  to  his  old  boyhood  home.  This  is 
obvious.  No  man  not  in  an  alcoholic  state  would 
be  jay  enough  to  think  of  going  back  to  the  home 
of  his  boyhood.  I've  wanted  to  go  back  to  my  old 
boyhood  home  myself,  and  I  know  all  about  that 
soggy  desire.  Fifteen  will  continue." 

"You  see,"  resumed  Ex-Tank  No.  15,  "I 
hadn't  got  within  more  than  hitting  distance  of  the 
old  town  since  I  left  it  when  I  was  a  twelve-year 
old  kid,  and  I  wanted  to  see  it.  It  got  so  that 
every  time  I  corned  up  I  just  longed  to  get  on  a 
train  and  ride  to  the  middle  of  the  country,  where 
the  town's  located,  and  look  it  over.  P'act  is,  I 
started  for  the  place  on  three  different  occasions. 
Once  I  shot  over  the  mark,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
I  went  to  sleep  for  three  days  on  the  train,  and  I 
landed  on  the  Pacific  coast.  I  didn't  land  there 
right,  either,  and  it  was  up  to  me  to  get  right  back 
here  to  my  base  on  this  seaboard.  Sold  Chinese 


TALE  THE  FIFTH  89 

canary  birds  on  commission  on  the  San  Francisco 
streets  and  from  house  to  house  to  get  the  price  of 
the  ride  back.  I  got  acquainted  with  a  lot  of  the 
hands  working  on  the  China  steamers.  Every 
time  they  made  San  Francisco  on  their  return  from 
China  they  brought  back  big  bunches  of  these 
canaries  in  little  wooden  cages.  They  let  me 
have  'em  for  one  dollar  (eight  bits,  they  call  it  out 
there)  apiece,  and  I  conned  people  into  buying  'em 
for  from  two  dollars  to  four  dollars  each.  I  had 
enough  to  get  back  here  with  bells  on  inside  of  a 
couple  of  months. 

"  Next  time  I  started  out  for  my  old  boyhood 
home  I  woke  up  in  a  Turkish  bath  in  Kansas 
City,  ordered  five  drinks  right  away,  and  found 
when  I  started  to  dress  that  I  was  shy  on  the  price 
of  them.  Didn't  have  a  nick.  Came  near  being 
handed  over  to  the  cops  for  ordering  booze  that  I 
couldn't  pay  for.  Didn't  see  much  chance  to  get 
out  of  Kansas  City  until  it  occurred  to  me  that  the 
Fourth  of  July  was  only  three  days  off.  So  I 
rented  a  little  vacant  store  on  my  face,  got  a  cargo 
of  fireworks  on  tick  from  a  big  wholesale  house 
and  went  into  business.  It  was  something  easy. 
I  sold  out  three  times  before  Fourth  of  July  night 
and  cleaned  up  $235  net. 

"  I  wasn't  sogged  enough  to  feel  like  keeping  on 


90          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

for  the  rest  of  the  way  to  my  boyhood  home  then, 
and  so  I  called  myself  in.  The  very  next  time  I 
went  skating  here  the  boyhood  home  bug  got  to 
fooling  with  me  again.  I  wanted  to  hear  the 
trumpet  calls  echoing  from  the  military  post  ad 
joining  my  old  boyhood  home.  I  wanted  to  see 
the  little  old  church.  Wanted  to  size  up  the  river 
where  I  learned  how  to  swim.  Wanted  to  see  the 
waving  fields  of  wheat  and  inhale  the  cool  evening 
fragrance  of  the  woods.  Wanted  to " 

u  Beery  thinks,"  growled  No.  7  under  his 
breath. 

"Wanted  to  land  there  with  gig  lamps  on  and 
with  dough  in  every  pocket,  and  show  the  little 
girls  that  declined  to  marry  me  when  I  was  ten 
years  old  what  they  missed.  It's  a  queer  old  bug, 
the  boyhood  home  bug  is,  and  every  time  you  hear 
flute  music  and  you're  sogged  right  it's  bound  to 
give  you  a  buzz.  So  I  started  out  for  my  boy 
hood  home  for  the  third  time  and  made  it.  Say, 
you  can  talk  about  your  disappointments,  but — well, 
I  wasn't  in  shape  to  enjoy  my  old  boyhood  home 
when  I  got  there,  as  far  as  that  goes.  You  see,  I 
stopped  off  in  Chicago.  Consequently,  when  I 
was  prodded  awake  in  the  dinky  little  station — it 
looked  bigger  than  any  Westminster  Abbey  to  me 
when  I  was  a  kid — in  my  boyhood  home,  I  was 


TALE  THE  FIFTH  91 

all  out,  to  the  last  red.  That  knocked  all  my  pipe- 
dreams  of  landing  at  the  old  place  with  a  patroniz 
ing  air  and  distributing  backsheesh  among  the 
natives.  I'd  intended  to  build  a  wing  to  the  little 
old  schoolhouse  where  I  learned  what  I  know  of 
fractions,  but  that  was,  of  course,  all  off.  I'd 
meant  to  stroll  around  and  watch  the  kids  among 
whom  I  was  raised  slaving  at  their  trades,  and  then, 
when  they  remembered  me,  to  have  'em  knock  off 
work  and  go  carriage  riding  with  me.  It  had  been 
my  original  idea,  or  one  of  'em,  in  coming  to  my 
old  boyhood  home  to  dig  up  the  old  Dutchman 
who  gave  me  fiddle  lessons  when  I  was  a  kid  and 
make  his  life  merry  with  Rhine  wine  for  a  few 
days.  Likewise,  I'd  intended  to — oh,  well,  I'd  had 
it  all  plotted  out  and  arranged  to  give  my  old  boy 
hood  home  a  blow-off  for  a  week  or  so,  and  to 
make  'em  all  feel  sorry  that  they  hadn't  pulled 
away  from  there  into  the  great,  wide,  open  world 
when  I  did  and  hadn't  become  somebody. 

"  I  got  a  job  that  afternoon  as  a  waiter  in  the 
restaurant  of  a  man  I  had  often  chased  up  alleys 
and  punched  when  we  were  ten-year-olds.  He 
didn't  know  me,  of  course,  and  I  didn't  want  any 
body  to  know  me.  I  was  in  my  old  boyhood 
home  incognito.  My  front  I  had  left  back  in 
Chicago,  gig  lamps  and  all.  I  knew  that  I  had 


92  TALP;S  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

made  a  hash  of  my  arrival  at  my  old  boyhood 
home,  but  I  wasn't  going  to  complete  the  job  by  put 
ting  anybody  next  to  who  I  was.  I  just  took  that 
tray-juggling  job  for  eight  a  week,  and  kept  still. 
I  figured  that  in  two  or  three  weeks  I'd  have  the 
price  of  a  ride  back  to  Chicago  or  any  where  outside 
of  my  old  boyhood  home,  and  that  kept  me  up. 

"  When  Sunday  came  around  I  thought  I'd  look 
around,  anyhow.  Went  to  the  church  where  I'd 
been  an  acolyte  when  a  kid.  Took  a  rear  seat  and 
watched  the  bunch  coming  in.  Recognized  a  lot 
of  the  people.  The  little  girl  named  Kittie 
O'Hoolihan,  who  had  spurned  my  offer  of  mar 
riage  when  we  were  both  ten  years  of  age,  was  one 
of  the  early  arrivals.  She  weighed  about  255,  and 
she  had  four  little  girls,  all  looking  the  same  age, 
along  with  her.  I  knew  her,  because  the  little 
girls  looked  just  like  she  looked  at  their  time  of 
life.  The  little  girls  that  I'd  haughtily  refused  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  when  I  was  a  youngster 
because  they  weren't  pretty  enough  to  suit  my 
juvenile  ideas  of  beauty  had  changed  to  handsome 
women,  and  the  girls  who  had  bewitched  me  with 
their  beauty  when  they  were  midgets  in  starched 
frocks  seemed  to  have  all  switched  to  homeliness. 
The  young  fellows  who  I'd  figured  out  would 
probably  be  working  as  iron  moulders  or  paper- 


TALE  THE  FIFTH  93 

box-factory  hands,  pranced  down  the  middle  aisle, 
done  up  to  the  limit,  with  the  swell  girls,  and  those 
who  I  thought  would  be  about  stake  class  by  the 
time  I  visited  my  old  boyhood  home  were  side-aisle 
plugs  who  looked  like  brickyard  hands.  The 
church,  that  I'd  been  figuring  on  as  little  short  of 
St.  Peter's  at  Rome  in  size,  wasn't  really  much 
bigger  than  a  chapel.  Whole  town  looked  to  the 
last  degree  dinky  and  squalid.  I  went  to  the 
house  where  I  was  born,  stood  outside  and  looked 
at  it ;  that  is,  I  wondered  how  my  governor 
could  have  ever  fallen  so  low  as  to  live  in  such  a 
hen  coop.  Oh,  how  I  wanted  to  get  away  from 
my  old  boyhood  home  !  How  I  longed  to  abandon 
it  forever  ! 

"  One  of  the  customers  of  the  restaurant  in  my 
old  boyhood  home  was  an  ex-Judge,  who  looked 
just  about  the  same  as  he  had  about  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  He  had  been  a  crony  of  my  father's. 
I  always  waited  on  him  and  we  picked  up  a  sort  of 
chatty  eater-and-waiter  acquaintance.  One  after 
noon,  after  I'd  been  hashing  it  for  a  couple  of 
weeks,  saving  every  dollar  so  I'd  be  able  to  pull 
my  freight  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  the  old 
gentleman  came  in  for  a  bottle  of  beer  and  a  sand 
wich.  He  paid  me  for  what  he  ate  and  drank  with 
a  five  dollar  bill,  and  I  dug  into  my  change  pocket 


94          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

to  see  if  I  had  the  breakings  of  the  bill.  I  pulled 
out  a  big  bunch  of  silver  coin  and  along  with  the 
handful  a  big  bronze  medal  that  my  father  had 
given  me.  He  had  carried  it  as  a  pocket-piece  for 
a  good  many  years,  and  when  he  died  it  passed  on 
to  me,  and  I  always  had  it  on  me.  It  was  more 
than  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter,  and  on  one 
side  it  had  a  fine  medallion  profile  portrait  of  John 
Paul  Jones.  On  the  other  side  was  a  picture  of 
one  of  John  Paul  Jones'  ships  in  action,  with 
wreckage  all  around,  men  clinging  to  spars  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing — a  fine  piece  of  work.  I  believe 
my  father's  people  were  mixed  up  somehow  or 
another  with  the  dashing  John  Paul.  My  father'd 
often  told  me  that  this  bronze  medal  was  one  of 
two  that  were  struck  off  by  a  lot  of  admiring  citi 
zens  of  Philadelphia  or  New  York  or  somewhere, 
and  presented  to  John  Paul  Jones — one  of  them 
gold,  and  this  one  that  he  passed  on  to  me  of  bronze. 

u  Well,  I  was  fumbling  around  among  the 
handful  of  change  when  this  old  ex-Judge  and 
former  pal  of  my  father's  got  his  eye  on  it.  He 
started  and  put  on  his  glasses. 

"  '  Just  let  me  see  that,  my  man,'  said  he  to  me, 
reaching  out  for  the  medal.  I  handed  it  to  him. 
He  inspected  it  carefully,  and  then  he  looked  at  me 
suspiciously. 


TALE  THE  FIFTH  95 

"  c  Where  did  you  get  this  ? '  he  asked  me  in 
rather  a  craggy  tone  of  voice. 

u  '  My  governor  gave  it  to  me  a  long  time  ago,' 
said  I,  not  thinking  that  this  old  gentleman  had 
ever  seen  it  before. 

"  '  What  is  your  name  ? '  he  asked  me,  still 
somewhat  severely.  c  Who  do  you  mean  by  your 
governor  ?  ' 

"  c  Well,  seeing  it's  you,  Judge,  and  knowing  that 
you're  not  liable  to  pass  it  around,'  said  I,  looking 
at  him  squarely,  *  I'll  tell  you  who  I  am,'  and  I 
up  and  told  him. 

" '  God  bless  me,  is  that  so  ?  '  said  he,  in  an  as 
tonished  tone.  c  Why,  I  might  have  known  it, 
though.  You  look  just  like  your  dad.  I  was 
about  to  accuse  you  of  having  stolen  this  medal. 
I  knew  that  there  was  only  one  like  it.  I'd  often 
seen  your  father  with  this.  Why,  my  boy,  what 
ever  in  the  world  are  you  doing  here,  and  how  long 
has  your  father  been  dead,  and  where  did  he  die, 
and  didn't  he  ever  read  a  newspaper  closely  enough 
to  see  an  advertisement  I  had  put  in  all  the  papers 
of  the  East  a  few  years  ago  for  his  eye  ?  ' 

uc  Anything  in  particular  that  you  wanted  him 
for  ?  '  I  asked  the  old  gentleman. 

" '  Rather  particular,  I  guess,'  he  said  to  me, 
'and  it's  a  mighty  good  thing  for  you  that  you've 


96          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

come  along.  Your  father  owned  a  strip  of  land 
bordering  on  the  military  reservation  here.  It 
wasn't  of  any  value  whatever  until  the  govern 
ment  wanted  it  a  few  years  ago  and  condemned  it, 
and  I,  without  knowing  where  your  father  was, 
took  his  interest  in  hand  and  got  an  award  of 
$4,500  for  it,  whereas  it  wasn't  really  worth  forty- 
five  dollars.  I  advertised  far  and  near  for  your 
father,  but  never  got  any  reply,  and  the  money's 
on  tap  in  the  hands  of  the  government  at  this 
minute,  waiting  for  a  claimant/ 

u  l  Well,  I'm  the  only  one  of  my  bunch  left,' 
said  I.  'You  couldn't  get  hold  of  that  $4,500 
this  afternoon,  now,  could  you  ?  I  want  to  get 
away  from  my  boyhood  home  at  the  rate  of  about 
sixty  miles  an  hour.' 

u  '  I  can  prove  your  case  and  get  you  the  money 
within  a  week,'  the  old  gentleman  replied. 
'  Meantime,  I  can  advance  you  whatever  sum  you 
may  require  to  enable  you  to  cease  this  degrading 
employment.' 

u  I  had  a  straight-out  talk  with  him  then,  and 
told  him  the  whole  game — how  I'd  landed  in  the 
home  of  my  boyhood  the  wrong  end  first,  in  an 
excess  of  sentiment,  and  how  like  thirty  cents  I 
felt,  and  how  I  didn't  want  to  be  known  under 
any  circumstances  until  I  could  show  up  something 


TALE  THE  FIFTH  97 

like  the  real  thing.  The  recital  appeared  to  tickle 
the  old  chap.  We  cooked  up  a  scheme.  I  re 
signed  my  job  as  soon  as  he  walked  out.  Then  I 
went  across  the  street  to  the  bank  and  cashed  a 
check  which  the  ex-Judge  gave  me,  and  started  in 
to  tog  out.  Went  to  a  barber  shop  and  got  po 
liced  thoroughly,  had  my  mustache  removed,  and 
came  out  of  there  looking  like  a  different  one  al 
together.  Then  I  slid  up  to  the  ex-Judge's  house 
in  a  hack,  got  up  to  a  room  that  he  had  fixed  for 
me,  and  arrayed  myself  in  the  purple  and  fine 
linen  that  I  had  bought.  Then  I  came  down 
stairs,  where  I  found  the  ex-Judge  and  his  family 
waiting  for  me.  The  old  gentleman  hadn't  told 
'em  a  line  of  his  manner  of  digging  me  up,  and  all 
I  had  to  do  was  to  take  supper  and  do  the  royal 
part  of  a  duck  from  New  York  just  arrived  in  the 
home  of  his  boyhood  for  a  little  visit.  Went 
down  town  arm-in-arm  with  the  old  gentleman 
that  night,  met  all  the  hot  cards,  including  the 
member  of  Congress  from  the  district,  got  the 
merry  hand  from  everybody,  stacked  up  against  all 
the  pretty  girls  that  were  babies  in  arms  when  I'd 
left  the  town  and  the  swagger  married  women  of 
my  own  age  who'd  been  smitten  with  my  early 
beauty,  and  had  all  the  real  gloat  out  of  my  visit 
to  my  boyhood  town  that  I'd  looked  forward  to  in 


98          TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

moments  of  song.  Next  morning  the  newspaper 
announced  my  arrival  in  flattering  terms  ('  rapidly 
rising  young  barrister,  located  in  the  great  city  of 
New  York/  the  paper  put  it),  and  the  nice,  civi 
lized  whirl  I  had  during  the  ten  days  I  was  wait 
ing  on  the  government  for  payment  of  the  claim 
made  me  feel  like  abjuring  the  bowl  forever.  Had 
a  good  deal  to  do  with  it,  in  fact.  I  very  willingly 
handed  the  old  ex-Judge  $1,000  out  of  the  bundle 
when  it  came  along,  together  with  the  John  Paul 
medal,  and  then  I  got  out  of  the  town  of  my  boy 
hood  at  high  noon,  with  a  mandolin  string  orches 
tra  serenading  me  at  the  station,  and  nobody  but 
the  old  ex-Judge  any  the  wiser  about  my  arrival 
there  a  month  before  in  a  smoking  car,  at  grey 
dawn,  without  the  price  of  a  shine  or  a  shave. 
And  I  haven't  had  the  boyhood  home  bug  in  my 
head  since." 


TALE  THE  SIXTH 


IN  WHICH    EX-TANK.  No.  4  TELLETH  OF  YE 
SOLDIERS  BRAVE,  AND  SOME  STRANGE  MEETINGS 


TALE  THE  SIXTH 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.  4  TELLETH  OF  YE  SOLDIERS 
BRAVE,  AND  SOME  STRANGE  MEETINGS 

"WHICH  this  isn't  such  a  much  of  a  huge 
world,  at  that,  after  you've  drawn  a  ring  around  it 
and  looked  it  over,"  remarked  Ex-Tank  No.  4, 
after  the  club  had  disposed  of  the  regular  order. 
"  It  looks  big  from  New  York,  and  it  looks  pretty 
derned  big,  too,  when  you're  crossing  an  Arizona 
desert  on  the  ties,  with  the  water  tanks  about  140 
miles  apart  ;  but  I  guess  there  are  bigger  worlds 
than  this,  anyhow." 

"  Can't  lose  your  creditors  in  this  one,  hey  ? " 
amiably  suggested  No.  9,  who  has  a  sarcastic  turn. 

u  Never  had  the  luck  to  find  any  creditors  until 
I  became  one  of  the  charter  members  of  this  club," 
responded  No.  4,  "  which  in  itself  is  a  sad  thing  to 
reflect  upon,  and  ironical,  considering  that  I  don't 
need  'em  in  my  business  now.  But  when  I  was 
paid  off  from  the  regular  army,  in  the  fall  of  '90, 
after  three  years  unavailingly  put  in  in  an  endeavor 

to  get  a  commission  from  the  ranks,  the  three " 

101 


102        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

u  Hold  on  there  a  minute,"  interrupted  Ex-Tank 
No  7,  the  club's  s^ckler  for  accuracy.  "  D'ye 
mean  to  inform  the  members  of  this  club  that  so 
lately  as  1890  your  habits  were  so  correct  as  to  en 
able  you  to  serve  three  years  in  the  army  of  the 
United  States  ?  Are  you  aware  of  the  fact  that, 
if  such  is  the  case,  your  eligibility  for  charter  mem 
bership  in  this  organization  is  in  question  and  in 
need  of  reconsideration  by  the  whole  club  ?  Hey  ? " 

"  Well,  I'll  tell  you  about  that,"  said  No.  4. 
"If  you  ever  by  any  chance  happen  to  visit  Fort 
Canby,  up  in  the  State  of  Washington,  on  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  or  Alcatraz  Island,  in  the  harbor  of 
San  Francisco,  and  take  note  of  the  fine,  skillful 
construction  of  the  roads  at  those  heavy  artillery 
posts,  and  you  ask  the  stationary  Provost  Sergeants 
of  'em  who  built  those  roads  originally,  you  want 
to  stand  by  to  hear  my  name  mentioned  ;  and  this 
will  probably  lead  the  old  Provost  Sergeants  to  en 
thusiasm  about  me,  and  they'll  tell  you  that  I  was 
the  finest  whitewasher  of  woodsheds,  chicken  coops 
and  picket  fences,  and  the  most  hustling  gravel 
digger,  and  the  liveliest  wood  splitter,  and  the  most 
scientific  sewer  flusher,  and  the " 

"  I  understood  you  to  say  that  you  were  in  the 
regular  army  as  a  soldier,"  put  in  No.  7. 

"  You  correctly  understood  me,"  replied  No.  4. 


TALE  THE  SIXTH  103 

"  That's  what  I  was — a  buck  private.  But  I  put 
in  my  three  years  in  the  clink — that  is,  most  of  the 
three  years.  You  see,  they  had  canteens  at  both 
Canby  and  Alcatraz." 

u  Oh  !  "  exclaimed  No.  7,  looking  sheepish. 

"  I  went  in  to  get  a  commission,  but  the  can 
teen  queered  me  on  that  proposition,"  said  No.  4. 
u  You  see,  when  you've  got  to  pass  by  the  guard 
house  in  order  to  get  back  to  your  quarters  from 
the  canteen,  as  you  have  to  do  at  Canby  and  Al 
catraz,  why,  you're  liable  to " 

"  Of  course,"  assented  No.  7.  "  I  withdraw  my 
questions.  But  what's  all  this  got  to  do  with  the 
smallness  of  the  world,  I'd  like  to  know  ?  " 

"  Pipe  down,  Seven,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank, 
rising.  u  You're  becoming  a  man-o'-war  chaw." 

"  Aye  !  "  assented  all  of  the  members  in  chorus, 
and  No.  7  took  a  back  seat  and  sulked  during  the 
remainder  of  the  evening. 

"  There  were  three  fellows  paid  off  from  Alca 
traz  Island  on  the  same  day  that  I  was,"  resumed 
Tso.  4.  "  They  had  all  happened  to  enlist  on  the 
same  day  that  I  did  in  different  parts  of  the  country. 
On  the  day  the  four  of  us  were  paid  off  and  went 
over  to  San  Francisco  together  we  were  all  ineli 
gible  for  initiation  into  membership  into  any  club 
of  Former  Alcoholic  Degenerates  whatsoever,  for 


io4        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

none  of  us  was  a  Former.  Jack  Fahey  of  Chicago 
had  been  busted  from  post  Sergeant-Major  at  Canby 
and  helped  me  at  my  steady  whitewashing  job  for 
a  month,  with  a  sentry  behind  the  pair  of  us,  for 
tearing  an  occupied  frame  house  down  across 
the  trail  in  II  Waco,  and  he  had  been  running  mate 
of  mine  in  the  mill  off  and  on  ever  since  his  chev 
rons  were  cut  off.  Cork  Mulvihill  had  got  the 
Corporal's  stripes  down  the  sides  of  his  legs  after 
three  months'  service,  and  then  he  punched  a  team 
ster  after  a  long  pay  day  at  the  canteen,  and  he  did 
ten  days  alongside  of  me  at  carrying  coal,  with  a 
sentry  for  company,  and  he  never  got  any  stripes 
on  his  legs  after  that.  Monk  Williams  had  been 
battery  clerk  for  fully  four  days  before  he  landed  in 
the  mill  with  me  for — well,  it  was  on  a  New  Year's 
eve,  and  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  Monk  and  I 
ran  the  guard,  climbed  up  in  front  of  the  command 
ing  officer's  quarters  at  Alcatraz  Island,  and,  Monk 
with  a  guitar  and  I  with  a  fiddle,  we  started  in  to 
serenade  the  old  man.  He  didn't  appreciate  melody 
at  that  unseemly  hour,  and  Monk  and  I  got  a 
month  and  a  month  each — which  means  the  month 
in  the  clink  and  the  loss  of  a  month's  pay. 

"  In  view  of  all  of  which,  it  is  natural  to  sup 
pose  that  when  the  four  of  us  were  turned  loose 
from  Alcatraz,  each  with  a  couple  a  hundred  in  his 


TALE  THE  SIXTH  105 

clothes,  we  weren't  going  to  hunt  up  any  vichy 
and  milk  to  begin  on.  We  all  were  going  to  buy 
railroad  tickets  and  go  right  home — we  swore  that ; 
we  might  take  a  hooter  or  two,  we  admitted,  but 
we  were  going  to  get  those  railroad  tickets  the  first 
rattle  out  of  the  box  so  that  we'd  have  a  cinch  on 
getting  back  East.  Jack  Fahey  belonged  in 
Chicago,  Cork  Mulvihill  in  St.  Louis,  Monk  Wil 
liams  in  Washington,  and  I — well,  I  had  written 
home  to  my  folks  here  that  I'd  be  back  in  New 
York  just  six  days  after  I  was  paid  off  from 
Alcatraz. 

"Well,  we  took  three  or  four  when  we  got  off 
the  government  boat  at  the  Clay  street  wharf  in 
San  Francisco,  and  then  we  went  in  a  body  and 
registered  at  the  Palace  Hotel.  The  clerk  of  the 
hotel  didn't  know  whether  to  let  us  sign  the 
register  or  not,  because  we  all  had  on  buck 
privates'  uniforms,  but  when  we  flashed  the  gilt  on 
him  and  paid  for  our  two  rooms  in  advance  he  had 
to  stand  for  the  uniforms.  Then  we  all  went  to  a 
clothing  joint  and  rigged  out  in  forty  dollar  ready- 
made  suits  of  clothes,  patent  leather  kicks,  five 
dollar  lids,  to  say  nothing  of  haberdashery,  and 
when  we  got  through  with  that  we  each  had  about 
$140  left.  Then  we  started  for  the  railroad  ticket 
office  to  buy  tickets  back  East.  We  stepped  into 


io6        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

the  Bella  Union  on  the  way  for  just  one,  and — 
well,  we  got  lost  at  the  Bella  Union.  I  found  my 
room  at  the  Palace  along  toward  three  o'clock  the 
next  morning,  and  I  found  Fahey  and  Williams 
there  ahead  of  me.  They  were  both  slumbering 
peacefully  with  their  hats  and  shoes  on,  one  of  'em 
on  the  bed  and  the  other  in  front  of  the  washstand. 
Mulvihill  didn't  turn  up  at  all  and  he  passed  out  of 
the  game  altogether.  He  didn't  show  up  during 
the  ten  days  more  that  the  three  of  us  put  in  in 
San  Francisco,  and  we  figured  that  he'd  been 
1  rolled '  and  thrown  into  the  bay.  On  the  tenth 
day  Williams  and  I  lost  Fahey.  Can't  remember 
where  or  how,  but  he  didn't  turn  up  at  the  place 
where  we  were  stopping — it  wasn't  the  Palace 
Hotel  where  we  were  stopping,  by  the  way,  at  that 
time — and  that  left  only  Williams  and  myself.  I 
remember  the  day  that  Williams  and  I  went  broke. 
It  was  in  a  Turkish  bath  that  we  both  made  the 
simultaneous  discovery  that  there  was  only  $2.45 
between  us.  We  weren't  really  faded,  though, 
over  our  impending  financial  embarrassment  until 
late  that  night,  when  we  were  both  waltzing  with 
some  Mexican  ladies  in  a  downstairs  imitation  of  a 
cafe  chantant  on  Kearney  street.  The  Mexican 
ladies  had,  it  seemed,  ordered  $11.90  worth  of 
liquids  at  our  expense,  unbeknownst  to  us,  and  in 


TALE  THE  SIXTH  107 

which  we  had  had  no  part  in  consuming,  in  fact ; 
and  when  we  showed  'em  our  sole  remaining  six 
bits  we  were  hopped.  Now,  Williams  was  six  feet 
two,  and  he  just  liked  to  be  hopped  this  way,  and 
I  wasn't  such  a  slob  at  the  game  of  taking  care  of 
myself  in  a  mix-up  at  that  time,  either.  So  we 
gave  'em  an  imitation  of  Tom  Gould's  in  its  palmy 
days,  and  got  out  with  only  a  few  cuts  and  our  six 
bits  intact.  At  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning 
the  seventy-five  cents  was  gone,  and  Monk  and  I 
got  out  into  the  air  and  looked  each  other  over. 

"  <  It's  all  off,  eh  ? '  said  Monk. 

"  '  Looks  that  way,'  said  I.  4  What  you  going 
to  do,  "  take  on  "  again  ? ' 

" '  Not  on  your  life,'  he  replied.  'I'm  going 
East.' 

" '  Those  mountains  and  things  between,  you 
know,'  said  I,  c  how  about  'em  r ' 

" l  They've  been  walked,'  said  Williams. 
4  Want  to  hump  it  along  with  me  ?  ' 

"  l  Not  by  a  damned  sight,'  said  I.  c  When  I  go 
East  I'm  going  to  ride  in  a  sleeper.' 

"  While  we  were  chinning  there  and  wondering 
where  the  next  one  was  coming  from,  a  duck  came 
along  and  butted  into  us  in  the  dark  of  Quincy 
street.  Williams  slammed  him,  and  hit  a  friend 
without  knowing  it.  The  man  was  Jack  Myers, 


io8         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

who  had  been  a  trumpeter  in  our  battery,  and  who 
had  been  paid  off  with  $500  the  month  before. 
Myers  was  togged  out  and  he  had  it  on  him.  He 
threw  five  or  six  into  us  before  he  asked  us  what 
our  graft  was.  When  we  told  him  we  were  broke, 
says  Jack  : 

" '  I've  got  a  house-boat  up  at  Stockton,  on  the 
San  Joaquin  river.  Bought  it  for  fifty  dollars 
when  I  got  paid  off,  furnished  it  up  with  skillets 
and  pots  and  a  couple  o'  chairs  and  gear,  and  I'm 
living  like  the  Jook  of  Cakkyack  in  it  all  by  my 
self — just  loafing.  Do  my  own  cooking,  spend 
half  the  day  shooting  snipe  along  the  river  for  fun 
and  the  meat,  and  am  having  a  devil  of  a  time  all 
by  my  lonesome.  Come  up  there  with  me,  the 
pair  of  you.  As  for  the  damps,  I've  got  kags  of 
it.' 

" 4  We're  on,'  said  Williams  and  I  in  a  breath, 
and  the  next  afternoon  the  three  of  us  took  one  of 
the  Stockton  stern-wheelers  and  got  up  to  Stockton 
the  next  morning  without  being  stuck  on  mud  and 
sand  bars  more'n  two  dozen  times.  Myers  hadn't 
exaggerated  the  joys  of  his  house-boat.  I  never  put 
in  two  more  corking  weeks  of  solid  comfort. 
Maybe  we'd  have  been  there  yet,  but  one  fine 
morning  Williams  went  out  for  a  walk  around 
Stockton  and  he  didn't  come  back.  This  started 


TALE  THE  SIXTH  109 

me  to  thinking  that  there  was  such  a  place  on  the 
map  as  New  York,  but  I  am  free  to  admit  that  I 
didn't  see  any  way  of  making  good  my  bluff  to 
Williams,  that  when  I  went  East  I'd  ride  in  the 
varnished  cars  with  bunks  in  'em.  I  decided  to  see 
if  I  couldn't  get  a  job  in  Stockton  and  work  long 
enough  to  accumulate  the  price  of  a  ticket.  The 
first  man  I  hit  up  for  a  job — I  was  decked  out  in 
fresh  linen  from  Myers's  wardrobe,  and  had  all 
kinds  of  a  shave  and  a  shine  when  I  went  out  to 
hunt  for  work — was  a  big  fruit  operator.  He 
guffed  with  me  for  a  while,  asked  me  if  I  ever 
drank,  and  if  not,  why  didn't  I,  and  pumped  me 
generally  for  ten  minutes  or  so.  Then  he  told  me 
that  three  or  four  days  later  he  was  going  to  send 
a  carload  of  choice  California  fruit  straight  across 
the  continent  by  fast  freight  to  New  York,  to  try 
that  market  again  for  the  hundred  and  twelfth  time 
on  the  California  fruit  question,  and  he  asked  me 
if  I  thought  I'd  be  able  to  do  any  rain-making  by 
word  of  mouth  as  to  the  merits  of  the  fruit  when 
it  got  to  New  York,  supposing  he'd  send  me  along 
with  it. 

"  Well,  I  didn't  tell  him  no,  you  can  figure  on 
that.  Four  days  later,  with  fifty  dollars  expense 
money  in  my  clothes,  I  bade  Jack  Myers  and  his 
house-boat  a  rather  regretful  good-bye  and  climbed 


tic        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANFCS 

into  the  swellest  caboose,  hitched  to  the  toniest 
and  fastest  fruit  freight  train  that  ever  left  the  Pa 
cific  coast.  I  was  It  in  that  caboose.  It  was  my 
private  caboose,  and  I  just  spent  eight  days  smok 
ing  and  reading  magazines  and  newspapers  in  it. 
Then  I  got  off  in  New  York,  which  I  hadn't  seen 
in  nearly  four  years,  with  thirty  dollars  velvet  still 
remaining.  I  sold  every  last  nickel's  worth  of 
that  fruit  for  my  California  man,  and  the  way  that 
I  have  since  won  out — humph  ! — forms  a  part  of 
the  records  of  this  organization. 

"  Two  years  ago  I  was  trying  to  get  across  the 
street  at  the  corner  of  State  and  Monroe  streets  in 
Chicago.  I  was  in  a  hurry  to  see  a  man  with 
whom  I  had  an  appointment  to  sell  a  bill  of  goods, 
and  I  took  chances.  State  and  Monroe  streets  is 
about  the  most  cluttered  corner  on  this  continent, 
not  barring  any  corner  in  New  York.  I  had  got 
across  one  of  the  cable  car  tracks,  and  I  was  just 
about  to  make  one  jump  of  it  to  clear  the  other — 
not  seeing  the  car  bearing  down  not  five  feet  away 
from  the  other  direction — when  I  got  caught  by 
the  scruff  of  my  overcoat  collar  and  jerked  back 
with  a  suddenness  that  made  my  teeth  rattle. 
When  I  turned  around  to  have  a  look  at  the  man 
that  had  saved  me  from  being  run  down,  I  looked 
into  the  good-natured  mug  of  Jack  Fahey,  in  the 


TALE  THE  SIXTH  ill 

uniform  of  a  Chicago  cop.  When  Jack  had  been 
lost  from  our  shuffle  out  in  San  Francisco  that 
time  he  had  turned  up  in  Vallejo,  across  from  the 
Mare  Island  Navy  Yard,  and  he  concluded  that  a 
three-year  cruise  in  the  navy  was  about  as  good  as 
anything  else.  So  he  had  gone  around  the  world 
as  a  bluejacket,  and  there  he  was,  an  old  ex-battery 
mate,  looking  at  me  and  grinning,  on  the  most 
jammed  street  corner  in  America.  When  Jack 
got  off  his  blue  duds  we  had  a  good  time  together, 
with  the  rum  cut  out. 

"  Six  months  later  I  was  standing  in  front  of 
the  Laclede  Hotel  in  St.  Louis  when  a  smooth 
faced  duck  with  a  Newmarket,  giglamps,  and  a 
pair  of  field-glasses  slung  over  his  shoulder, 
walked  up  behind  me  and  gave  me  a  clap  on  the 
back  that  I  can  feel  yet,  and  when  I  turned  around 
I  had  to  shake  hands  with  Cork  Mulvihill,  who 
had  shaved  off  his  red  mustache  and  was  playing  the 
St.  Louis  races  and  running  a  string  of  his  own 
with  all  kinds  of  luck.  During  the  half-day  cug- 
germuggering  that  I  had  with  Cork,  he  told  me 
that  when  he  became  separated  from  our  push  he 
landed  out  near  the  old  San  Francisco  race-course, 
where  a  running  meeting  was  then  going  on,  and 
that,  being  broke,  he  had  got  a  job  as  a  rubber. 
He  had  had  a  run  of  luck  in  playing  them  with 


ii2        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

the  few  dollars  he  made,  and  within  a  couple  of 
years  he  had  turned  his  shoestring  into  a  tannery. 

"  On  the  night  of  the  last  big  right,  when  I  was 
sitting  with  a  couple  of  friends  right  in  front  of 
the  platform  and  longing  to  have  McCoy  punch 
Sharkey  into  kingdom  come,  who  should  I  see 
leering  at  me  in  a  box  only  ten  feet  away  but  six- 
foot-two  Monk  Williams  of  Washington.  Monk 
was  togged  out  like  a  four-time  winner,  which  he 
is,  but  his  name  in  Washington  is  not  Monk  Wil 
liams.  He  had  made  the  whole  trip  from  the 
house-boat  on  the  San  Joaquin  to  Washington  by 
freight,  and  when  he  got  home  his  prosperous 
brothers  took  him  in  hand,  so  that  Monk  that  was 
is  now  the  proprietor  of  about  a  dozen  of  the  big 
gest  market  stands  in  Washington,  and  just  rides 
around  in  a  buggy  and  collects  the  rake-off  from 
them.  As  for  me — humph  ! — well " 

And  Ex-Tank  No.  4  drew  himself  up  to  his  full 
height  with  pardonable  pride. 


TALE  THE  SEVENTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  16  ILLUSTRATETH  THE 
VALUE  UNTO  MAN  OF  YE  GOOD  FRONT 


TALE  THE  SEVENTH 

WHEREIN     EX-TANK     NO.      1 6     ILLUSTRATETH     THE 
VALUE    UNTO    MAN    OF    YE    GOOD    FRONT 

"THE  inestimable  value  of  a  front,"  said  Ex- 
Tank  No.  1 6,  the  best-dressed  member  of  the 
Harlem  Club  of  Former  Alcoholic  Degenerates, 
"  never  got  a-hold  of  me  until  after  they  had  tried 
to  vag  me  about  six  times.  At  that,  it  wasn't  un 
til  my  day  for  getting  vagged  was  all  over  that  I 
bloomed  forth  like — well,  just  look  at  me,  that's 
all,"  and  No.  16  surveyed  himself  with  an  oleagi 
nous  smile  of  pardonable  pride,  while  all  the  other 
Ex-Tanks  present  chimed  in  with,  "Yes,  just  look 
at  him,  that's  all !  " 

"  Before  the  practically  incalculable  value  of  a 
front  soaked  into  what  I  am  pleased  to  term  my 
mind,"  continued  Ex-Tank  No.  16,  "  they  really 
couldn't  be  blamed  for  sizing  me  up  as  a  proper 
recruit  for  the  rock  pile,  for  if  ever  there  was  a 
slouch  then  I  was  It  before  I  went  in  for  sartorial 
rejuvenation,"  and  Ex-Tank  No.  16  preened 
himself  some  more,  while  the  club  chorused, 
115 


n6        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"  Before  he  ceased  to  be  a  slouch,  why,  he  was 
It!" 

"  One  morning,  when  the  clock  in  the  steeple  was 
ready  to  chime  two,"  went  on  Sixteen,  u  I  was  lean 
ing  against  a  lamp-post  on  Arapahoe  street,  in  Den 
ver.  I  was  thinking ;  I  wasn't  thinking  about 
how  much  like  a  hobo  I  looked  or  about  the  dent 
in  my  hat,  but  I  was  thinking  about  other  matters. 
I  had  only  got  into  Denver  from  Omaha  about 
two  hours  before,  and  I  may  have  had  eight  or  ten 
under  my  waist  band ;  but  I  was  all  right,  even  if 
I  did,  in  accordance  with  my  lifelong  negligence 
of  dress,  look  like  a  slob ;  and  I  didn't  know  there 
was  any  municipal  ordinance  against  a  man's  lean 
ing  on  an  Arapahoe  street  lamp-post  and  thinking. 

"  A  cop  about  eight  feet  high  came  up  quietly 
behind  me  and  gave  me  a  prod  with  his  club. 

" c  Went  away,  Louie,'  said  he.  c  Stop  dossin' 
agin  the  post.  You're  liable  to  fall  down  and 
come  apart.  Haven't  you  got  the  price  of  a 
bunk  ? ' 

" c  I  am  thinking,'  said  I. 

u '  So'm  I,'  said  the  cop,  getting  a  grip  on  the 
left  sleeve  of  my  coat.  c  I'm  a  thinkin'  about  run- 
nin'  you  in.  Come  on,'  and  he  gave  me  three 
jerks  in  the  direction  that  he  wanted  to  take. 

"  '  Go  ay-way,'  said  I.     4  Turn  me  loose.     You 


TALE  THE  SEVENTH  117 

know  not  what  you  do.  What  wouldst  thou  with 
me?' 

"  '  Don't  get  glad  with  me,'  said  the  cop, '  or  I'll 
rough-house  you  up  some.' 

" '  Say,  what  do  I  look  like  ? '  I  asked  him  go 
ing  along,  though,  so  as  to  prevent  him  from 
ripping  hunks  off  my  arm.  '  Is  it  so  bad  as  all 
that  ?  ' 

" '  You  look  like  zinc  money  after  it's  been  run 
over  and  stepped  on,'  replied  the  cop  with  brutal 
candor,  '  and  it  ain't  no  cinch,  but  what  you'd  turn 
a  trick  with  the  wedge  and  the  phony  keys  at  that,' 
and  he  gave  me  two  or  three  yanks  to  shake  me  up 
some  in  my  stride. 

u  l  Which  am  I,  then,  suspicious  character  or 
vag  ? '  I  asked  him. 

"  '  Both,'  he  answered,  '  and  a  chinner  from  the 
bottom  lands  besides.  Shut  up.  I'm  only  paid 
for  walkin'  you.  The  desk  Sergeant'll  do  the 
listenin'.' 

"Whereupon  I  decided  to  abandon  frivolous 
conversation  until  I  was  stacked  up  against  the 
desk  Sergeant. 

" '  What  you  got  ? '  the  desk  Sergeant  asked 
the  cop  when  he  brought  me  into  the  station 
house. 

" '  Talky     vag,'    said    the     cop.     '  Found    him 


n8         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

holdin'  up  a  light-pole  on  Arapahoe  street,  without 
visible  means  o'  bunkin'.  Don't  know  whether 
he's  got  any  of  the  tools  on  him,  but  he  looks  to 
me  like  one  of  'em.' 

"  '  Search  him,'  said  the  desk  Sergeant. 

"  The  cop  reached  for  the  inside  breast  pocket 
of  my  bum  coat  first,  and  got  out  my  wallet.  He 
dug  $800  in  twenties,  fifties  and  hundreds  out  of 
the  middle  compartment,  and  then  he  wiped  the 
perspiration  off  his  forehead  with  a  bandanna  and 
looked  at  me  with  his  jaw  hanging  dislocatedly  on 
the  breast  of  his  coat.  You  could  ha'  knocked 
the  Sergeant's  eyes  off  with  a  stick. 

" c  What's  your  business  and  where  are  you 
from  r  '  the  Sergeant  asked  me  when  he  got 
through  taking  short  breaths. 

"  '  Lawyer — Omaha/  said  I. 

" c  Lawyer  ? '  said  he.  c  You're  a  merry  propo 
sition,  ain't  you  ?  You  look  like  four  days  over 
the  mountains  on  an  oil  train,  and  you  have  the 
gall  to  say  you're  a  lawyer.  How  about  that 
money  ?  Where  did  you  get  it  ?  If  you're  a 
lawyer,  how  about  your  make-up  ? ' 

" c  That's  my  business/  said  I,  c  but  to  satisfy 
your  curiosity  I  don't  mind  saying  that  my 
make-up  is  a  little  eccentricity  that  betokens  latent 
genius.  Genius  runs  in  my  family.' 


TALE  THE  SEVENTH  119 

u '  Be  careful,  my  bucko/  said  the  Sergeant, 
looking  warm  beneath  the  collar.  c  You're  a  vag, 
and  I  don't  know  but  what  you're  a  thief,  and  we 
don't  take  slack  from  that  kind  here." 

" c  Well,  I  don't  like  to  keep  you  waiting,'  said 
I,  feeling  that  I'd  be  shoved  back  if  I  didn't  open 
pretty  soon,  c  and  so  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that 
at  eleven  o'clock  this  morning  I'm  going  to  appear 
before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  Colorado 
to  argue  a  railroad  case.  If  you  don't  believe  it, 
just  dig  out  of  that  wallet  a  letter  with  reference 
to  the  case  from  a  gentleman  who  ornaments  the 
Colorado  bar,  and  whose  non-active  partner  is  now 
a  United  States  Senator  for  Colorado.  If  that 
doesn't  satisfy  you,  just  ring  up  the  gentleman  and 
ask  him  for  a  description  of  the  junior  member  of 
his  corresponding  legal  firm  in  Omaha,  or,  better 
still,  send  your  eight-footer  along  with  me  up  to 
his  house.' 

"The  whole  beauty  of  this  spiel  consisted  in 
the  fact  that  it  was  true.  And  if  there's  anything 
more  joyous  in  this  life  than  having  a  clean  bulge 
on-  a  desk  Sergeant  in  a  police  station  I've  still  got 
some  fun  ahead  of  me.  I  was  unhobbled  and 
turned  loose  instantly,  and,  as  usual,  the  Sergeant 
socked  it  to  the  cop  for  being  a  pinhead,  a  light 
weight,  and  an  in-and-outer.  The  old  man  of  my 


120        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

firm  in  Omaha  heard  about  it,  though,  and  when  I 
got  back  (after  winning  out  in  the  railroad  case)  he 
went  systematically  at  the  job  of  convincing  me 
of  the  value  of  a  front.  My  friends,  you  see  the 
result !  " 

"  The  result  !  "  hummed  the  Ex-Tanks. 

"And  speaking  of  results,"  went  on  No.  16, 
"  reminds  me  of  the  time  when,  long  before  the 
incident  I  have  just  narrated,  I  was  vagged  within 
13-inch  rifle  shot  of  the  New  York  City  Hall 
for  not  looking  like  the  real  thing,  that  is,  when  I 
was  nearly  vagged.  My  fellow  Ex-Tanks  may 
remember  that  in  former  years  the  racing  of  run 
ning  horses  was  quite  a  popular  pastime  in  this 
neighborhood.  Still  is,  do  I  hear  ?  Um  !  Is  that 
so  ?  Strange  I  had  not  heard.  Well,  anyhow,  at 
the  time  I  revert  to,  the  racing  of  thoroughbred 
horses  around  a  circular  track  was  esteemed  as  a 
more  than  mildly  exciting  sport.  I  esteemed  it  that 
way  myself.  I  was  too  busy  in  fighting  the  demon 
rum  and  in  trying  to  hold  jobs  for  two  consecutive 
weeks  at  that  period  to  be  able  to  visit  the  tracks 
very  frequently.  But  at  the  time  there  were  in 
stitutions  known  as  poolrooms,  upon  the  black 
boards  of  which  the  names  of  the  contending 
horses  were  spread,  together  with  the  odds  laid  at 
the  tracks  on  or  against  the  chances  of  each. 


TALE  THE  SEVENTH  121 

One  Friday,  just  after  being  fired  from  my  job, 
with  eleven  dollars  in  hand,  I  went  into  one  of 
these  old-time  institutions — they  are  but  a  memory 
now,  I  understand — and  bet  the  horse  ten  dollars 
of  my  eleven  dollars  that  the  six  horses  I  named 
would  win  their  respectives  races.  That  was  what 
was  called  a  combination.  My  combination  paid 
$3,000  to  $10,  and  it  won. 

" l  Here,'  said  I  to  myself,  '  is  where  I  efface 
the  scandal  of  racing  from  this  neighborhood. 
This  is  my  mission.  I  shall  absorb  all  of  the 
money  of  the  bookmakers.  Without  bookmakers 
there  can  be  no  racing.  Consequently,  in  shatter 
ing  the  bookmakers  I  shall  put  an  end  to  this  in 
sidious  racing  business,  and  the  conservative 
population  shall  arise  and  call  me  the  real  thing.' 

"  I  was  at  my  slouchiest  in  those  days,  and 
when  I  appeared  at  the  race-track  the  next  after 
noon  and  put  down  $3,000  with  three  bookmakers 
on  the  horse  Gotham  to  win,  at  3  to  5  on — thus 
standing  to  win  $1,800,  which  I  thought  was  good 
enough  for  that  one  day — they  viewed  me  with 
suspicion.  They  no  doubt  thought  that  I  had 
stolen  the  money.  Gotham  lost  by  a  nose.  I 
crunched  my  $3,000  to  $1,800  ticket  in  my  clothes 
and  went  forth  mournfully.  I  pulled  up  some 
where  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bay  Ridge  toward 


122         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

midnight,  and  a  constable  with  chin  whiskers  was 
rapping  the  bottom  of  my  feet — I  omitted  to  say 
that  I  was  lying  down. 

" c  Come  along  wit'  me,  sport,'  said  the  consta 
ble  with  chin  whiskers. 

"  c  Which  ?  '  said  I,  getting  up. 

" l  Yez'll  make  a  good  road-mendher,'  said  the 
constable.  '  But  as  a  hobo  yeez  is  not  wan,  two, 
t'ree,  or  yeez  wouldn't  be  a-sleepin'  in  th'  road/ 

u  The  '  one,  two,  three  '  was  a  cue.  It  sounded 
as  if  the  chin-whiskered  constable  had  been  against 
the  game  himself. 

UCI  don't  train  with  that  lot;  you're  mixed,' 
said  I.  c  My  name's  Walton,  Joe  Walton — Plun 
ger  Walton,  the  bunch  call  me.  I  fell  down  pretty 
hard  this  afternoon  on  that  Gotham  thing,  and  it 
dazed  me.' 

"  The  constable  took  me  to  the  light  of  a  street 
oil-lamp  and  looked  me  over. 

" '  Gotham,  is  it  ? '  said  he,  with  a  show  of  in 
terest.  '  Oi  lose  foive  dollars  on  th'  nag  meself. 
Yeez  doan't  look  as  if  yeez  had  foive  cints  t'  lose 
on  that  wan  or  anny  other.' 

"  I  pulled  out  my  $3,000  to  $1,800  ticket  and 
showed  it  to  him  in  the  light.  '  Gotham — $3,000 
to  $1,800,'  it  read. 

u  c  Only  dropped  thirty  hundred  on  it,  that's  all/ 


TALE  THE  SEVENTH  123 

said  I,  not  airily,  but  in  an  everyday  sort  of  tone. 
The  ticket  made  a  square  bull's-eye  on  the  con 
stable. 

u  c  Thin  it's  Walton  yeez  is,  is  it  ? '  said  he. 
4Who  th'  divil  would  ha'  believed  it?  Ye  had 
betther  be  off  an'  away,  Walton,  before  th'  sun 
comes  up/  And  I  took  his  advice  and  departed. 
That's  how  near  I  came  to  being  vagged,  within 
eight  miles  of  the  house  where  I  was  born,  for  not 
appreciating  the  value  of  a  front. 

"  About  a  year  later  they  actually  got  me  under 
lock  and  key,  as  a  preliminary  to  vagging  me, 
simply  because  I  didn't  have  on  good  clothes. 
This  was  down  in  Washington.  The  experience 
was  worth  an  even  $500  to  me.  I  went  down  to 
Washington  to  get  the  job  of  Attorney-General  or 
something  like  that,  but,  as  usual  with  me  then,  I 
neglected  to  consider  togs  as  an  essential  in  an 
undertaking  of  that  character.  I  knew  a  lot  of 
people  in  Washington,  but  the  cop  didn't  give  me 
time  to  hunt  them  up.  The  cop,  I  should  men 
tion,  found  me  slumbering  on  a  bench  in  the 
Smithsonian  grounds.  The  stuff  that  they  purvey 
on  the  trains  always  had  a  dopey  effect  on  me,  any 
how,  and  so  I  sought  a  sequestered  corner  of  the 
beautiful  park  surrounding  the  Smithsonian  Insti 
tution  and  found  sweet  repose  on  a  bench.  I  don't 


124         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

know  how  long  it  lasted,  but  I  distinctly  recall  the 
rataplan  skill  with  which  the  cop  gave  me  the  hot 
foot.  He  was  a  black  cop. 

u'Yo'  all  kin  traipse  uhlong  wid  me,'  he  said, 
and  I  was  too  sleepy  by  a  whole  lot  to  make  any 
kick.  I  went  along. 

" c  Ah  foun'  dis  heah  man  uh-sleepin'  on  uh 
pahk  bench,'  the  coon  cop  said  to  the  Sergeant  at 
the  desk. 

"  The  Sergeant  asked  me  what  I  had  to  say  for 
myself,  and  I  said  it.  I  mentioned  a  lot  of  people 
in  Washington  who  had  the  honor  of  knowing  me, 
and  he  decided  to  hold  me  in  a  witness  room  until 
he  had  a  chance  to  verify  my  statements.  I  was 
pretty  sore  when  they  chucked  me  into  a  witness 
room  already  occupied  by  a  big,  black  '  spote.'  He 
was  togged  out  in  checks  as  big  as  paving  blocks, 
and  large  rose  diamonds.  He  was  sound  asleep  in 
a  chair,  and  my  entrance  didn't  cause  him  to  bat 
an  eye  toward  waking  up.  I  hadn't  been  in  there 
more  than  ten  minutes  before  the  black  '  spote ' 
began  to  dream  out  loud.  A  nightmare  was  stomp 
ing  all  over  him,  and  he  choked  and  spluttered  in 
his  sleep.  I  took  him  by  the  shoulder  and  shook 
him  awake.  He  looked  at  me  wildly. 

"  '  Ah  sut'nly  was  uh-dreamin','  he  said.  '  Ah 
was  uh-dreamin'  dat  Ah  was  uh-runnin'  one  o' 


TALE  THE  SEVENTH  125 

dese  heah  cable  cahs,  an'  dat  uh  leetle  teeny  white 
baby  done  got  in  front  o'  de  cah.  Ah  couldn't 
stop  de  cah,  an'  Ah  was  just  uh-comin'  down  on 
de  baby  w'en  Ah  woke  up.' 

"  Then  he  rubbed  his  eyes,  looked  around,  and  a 
slow  grin  crept  over  his  black  countenance. 

" '  Ah  won't  do  uh  t'ing  but  play  de  Baby  Row 
w'en  dey  tuhns  me  loose  from  heah,'  he  said. 

"  That  set  me  to  thinking  about  the  monumental 
luck  that  follows  the  Afro-American  brother  when 
he  plays  his  superstitions.  I  asked  the  black 
4  spote  '  where  there  was  a  policy  shop  in  Washing 
ton,  and  he  told  me.  I  was  turned  loose  about 
half  an  hour  later,  and  I  reached  the  policy  shop  in 
time  for  the  8  P.  M.  drawing.  I  had  seven  dollars, 
and  I  put  five  dollars  of  the  bunch  on  the  Baby 
Row.  The  Baby  Row  happened  the  first  rattle  out 
of  the  dish,  and  it  paid  100  to  I. 

"  But  I  might  have  landed  the  Attorney-General 
ship  had  I  then  understood — as  I  now  understand 
— the  value  of  a  front." 


TALE  THE  EIGHTH 


IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  12  NARRATETH  His 
EXPERIENCE  AS  A  STROLLING  PLAYER  IN  THE 
DRAMA  OF  YE  BARD  OF  AVON 


TALE  THE  EIGHTrf 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.  12  NARRATETH  HIS  EX 
PERIENCE  AS  A  STROLLING  PLAYER  IN  THE 
DRAMA  OF  YE  BARD  OF  AVON 

"  WITHOUT  entertaining  any  desire  to  detract 
from  the  glamour  with  which  posterity  has  invested 
the  genius  of  the  Bard,"  remarked  Ex-Tank  No. 
12,  drumming  with  obvious  unconsciousness  on 
the  table  with  the  fingers  of  his  left  hand,  so  as  to 
give  the  overhead  lights  a  chance  to  bring  out  the 
beauty  of  all  the  facets  of  the  faultlessly-cut  3~k. 
blue  diamond  on  the  third  finger,  "and  with  no 
purpose  or  wish  to  induce  the  members  of  this 
club  to  change  their  preconceived  notions  with 
reference  to  the  Swan  of  Avon,  I  yet  take  the 
liberty  of  rising  to  state  that  Bill  undeniably  made 
a  few  bad  breaks.  I'm  not  speaking  of  the  way 
he  permitted  Macbeth  to  wabble  around  and  al 
low  himself  to  be  bulldozed  by  his  wife,  nor  of 
his  failure  to  land  the  Melancholy  Dane  in  a  nut 
factory  at  the  wind-up  of  the  play  (there  must 
have  been  some  kind  of  a  Bloomingdale  outfit  in 
129 


130        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Denmark  at  that  time  for  folks  who  had  wheels), 
nor  of  the  yellow  finish  he  dished  out  to  Antony, 
nor  of  the  four- flushing  talk  he  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Coriolanus,  nor  of  any  of  the  rest  of  the  little 
idiosyncracies  in  the  writing  of  the  Bard  which 
the  pygmies  since  his  day  and  date  have  called 
attention  to.  I'm  just  throwing  it  into  him  a  few 
to  sort  o'  square  up  a  personal  grievance.  I'm 
sore  on  him  because  he  heaved  some  superfluous 
characters  into  his  plays,  and  of  these  the  super- 
fluousest  was  and  is  Count  Paris  in  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  I  know  that  that  part's  superfluous,  be 
cause  I've  played  it  myself.  It's  a  pretty  unusual 
thing  for  a  man  to  be  humiliated  through  no  less  a 
famous  gazebu  than  William  Shakespeare,  but  that's 
just  what  happened  to  me.  Through  Shakespeare 
I  was  made  to  feel  like  ten  Tien-Tsin  taels.  There 
was  a  win-out  end  to  it  finally,  but " 

u  Knock  off  talking  like  a  man  in  a  cave," 
urged  the  club,  gently,  in  chorus. 

"You  can't  spreadeagle  this  outfit  by  going  at  a 
talkfest  both  ends  from  the  middle,"  protested 
Ex-Tank  No.  7,  the  parliamentarian  and  kicker. 
"  You're  ten  lengths  behind  your  field.  Hunch 
up  and  do  some  riding  or  you'll  be  beat  a  quarter 
of  a  mile." 

" but,"  resumed  Ex-Tank  No.  12  where  he 


TALE  THE  EIGHTH  131 

had  left  off,  "  the  thing  left  its  scar.  Here's  what 
one  of  the  little  jay  papers  said  about  me,"  diving 
into  his  vest  pocket  and  producing  a  yellowed 
clipping  about  a  stick  long  and  reading : 

"  c  The  underfed,  reluctant,  tentative  proposition 
in  red  cotton  tights,  a  frayed  green  tunic  of  Visigoth 
architecture,  and  a  Mexican  slouch  hat  minus  the 
rim-bells,  who  essayed  the  role  of  Count  Paris — 
well,  we  frankly  own  to  being  up  against  it  in  the 
attempt  which  we  had  intended  to  undertake  to 
describe  this  young  man's  weird  and  wild  interpre 
tation.  Briefly,  then,  he  made  the  Bard  look  as  if 
he  had  been  hit  on  the  wishbone  by  a  steamboat 
when  he  was  writing  that  part.  We  doff  our  bon 
nets  reverently  at  the  mere  mention  of  the  great 
Singer's  name,  and  yet  we're  bound  to  say  that,  in 
our  humble  judgment,  he  should  have  fixed  it  so 
that  Count  Paris  could  be  kicked  to  death  by 
rabbits  in  the  first  act.  It  may  be  that  in  the 
ranks  of  Thespians  there  are  male  bipeds  capable 
of  assuming  the  role  of  the  Count  of  Paris  and  of 
making  that  pinhead  look  less  like  a  zinc  dime  than 
he  really  is  in  the  play,  but  we  doubt  it.  Assumed, 
however,  by  a  man  with  the  physique  of  a  hod- 
carrier  and  the  grace  and  carriage  of  a  cook-stove 
trying  to  climb  a  tree '  >: 

"  I  object,"  interrupted  the  parliamentarian  and 


I32        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

kicker.  "  I  ask  the  members  of  this  organization 
one  and  all,  if  this  is  a  literary  outfit  or  a  club  of 
ex-disciples  of  the  Demon  Rum,  and  I  also  inquire 
when  we  may  expect  to  have  some  mug  get  up 
here  and  try  to  heave  '  Curfew  Shall  Not  Ring 

To-night '  into  us  ?     What's  the " 

u  It  happened  in  Minonk,  Illinois,"  went  on  Ex- 
Tank  No.  12,  carefully  returning  the  clipping  to 
his  vest  pocket,  "  late  in  the  autumn  of  '89.  It 
isn't  germane  to  the  main  incident  what  I  was 
doing  in  Minonk,  Illinois,  but  I  may  state  that  I 
was — er — going  from  Chicago  to  St.  Louis  with 
out  money,  on  a  wager — with  myself — when  I  fell 
into  Minonk.  c  Fell '  is  about  right  in  this  con 
nection.  The  brakeman  demanded  coin,  and  I 
had  no  coin.  So  I  fell  off  the  flat-car,  and  the 
place  where  I  fell  happened  to  be  Minonk.  It  was 
then  about  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the 
fast  freight  went  right  through  Minonk.  I  didn't 
even  get  scraped — landed  in  some  bushes  on  the 
outskirts  of  town,  and  it  was  a  soft  spot.  I  got  up 
and  hoofed  it  to  the  station.  An  accommodation 
train  had  just  got  in,  and  there  were  twelve  sad 
people  on  the  platform.  They  looked  their  part. 
They  were  *  hams.'  I  can  tell  a  ham  two  miles 
away  in  a  valley  without  a  pince-nez.  They 
were  dickering  with  the  driver  of  a  craft  that 


TALE  THE  EIGHTH  133 

looked  like  a  Hank  Monk  stage-coach  about  the 
ride  up  to  the  hotel,  likewise  for  the  transporta 
tion  of  their  gear  to  the  op'ry  house.  There  were 
three  trunks  in  the  bunch,  which  included  costumes, 
street  apparel,  and  the  whole  works  for  the  pres 
entation  of  '  Shakespearean  repertoire.'  The  'bus 
driver  wanted  seventy-five  cents  for  the  whole  job, 
and  the  main  guy  of  the  push  was  trying  to  get 
him  to  do  it  C.  O.  D.  The  driver  renigged,  and 
when  the  main  guy  got  him  down  to  fifty  cents  he 
produced  the  half  and  the  bunch  started  for  the 
inn.  I  was  standing  rubbering  at  'em,  with  my 
hands  in  my  pockets,  and  filled  with  the  earnest 
desire  for  coffee  and  hot  biscuits  that  you've  read 
about,  when  the  main  guy,  who  had  on  an  olive- 
green  frock  coat  (not  the  original  color)  and  a  plug 
hat  of  an  extreme  vintage,  piped  me  ofF.  I  neg 
lected  to  state  that,  all  in  all,  I  had  a  pretty  good 
front  for  a  flat  car  tourist.  Before  starting  out 
from  Chicago  I'd  got  hold  of  four  dollars,  and  I 
went  c  down  the  bay  '  with  it.  Got  a  papier-mache 
suit,  shoes,  hat,  and  a  pink  flannel  shirt  for  $2.80, 
and  as  I'd  only  been  out  four  days  from  Chicago 
the  goods  still  held  together  and  looked  good 
enough. 

"  '  Ha,  me   Cassio,'   says   the   boss   ham  of  the 
bunch,  stepping  away  from  the  'bus  and  looking  me 


I34        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

over,  *  methinks  you  resemble  the  castaway  upon 
the  shores  of  Time  that  we  lost  back  in  Fairbury 
yesterday.' 

"  '  That  so  ? '  said  I.  l  He  must  ha'  been  a 
la-la.  I'd  like  to  meet  up  with  a  double  that  had 
the  price.  I  could  use  him.' 

u  The  poor  guy  looked  hungry  himself,  but  he 
had  learned  the  lesson  of  cheerfulness  under  adver 
sity.  He  beamed  upon  me  just  as  if  he  was  on  the 
point  of  handing  me  money,  and  he  said  : 

"  '  Canst  act  ?  ' 

"  It  was  up  to  me  to  laugh,  and  I  did. 

u  '  I  could  put  up  the  biggest  bluff  you  ever  saw 
at  a  banquet  scene,  right  now,  without  any  re 
hearsal/  I  told  him,  '  but  in  other  parts  I  don't 
think  I'd  ever  be  able  to  chase  Booth  and  Barrett 
over  the  Mexican  line.' 

" l  Say,'  said  the  poor  devil,  dropping  his  voice 
confidentially  and  belaying  his  Shakespearean  pat 
ter,  c  you'll  do.  We're  a  man  shy.  He  didn't 
show  up  when  we  left  Fairbury,  and  he  was  seeing 
'em  anyhow  during  the  performance  last  night. 
Er — owing  to  a  little  misfortune  we  were  com 
pelled  to  leave  a  few  of  our  accessories  back  there, 
so  that  here,  where  we  are  billed  for  two  nights, 
we'll  have  to  give  'em  Romeo  and  Juliet  both 
times — only  costumes  we've  got  left,  y'see.  Now, 


TALE  THE  EIGHTH  135 

here's  a  problem  in  doubling  up  for  all  hands  that 
I'm  afraid  we're  not  equal  to,  and  we  just  need  one 
more  man.  D'ye  think  you  could  get  the  lines  of 
Count  Paris  and  walk  through  the  part  for  us? 
Why,  of  course  you  could  !  Just  get  into  the  'bus 
and  we'll  talk  it  over  at  breakfast. 

"  '  Breakfast  !  ' — that's  the  word  that  landed  me. 
I  got  into  the  'bus — that  is,  the  boss  ham  linked 
arms  with  me  and  shanghaied  me  into  the  'bus. 

"  Our  new  attache/  said  he,  introducing  me 

around  to  the  rest  of  the  bunch.  c  Mr. er 

I  didn't  catch  your  name  ? ' 

"  I  handed  him  my  stage  name — Reginald 
Montmorency,  or  some  old  thing  like  that. 

"  Ten  minutes  later  I  was  sitting  down  at  the 
breakfast-table  with  the  bunch,  after  a  wash-up  and 
a  brush-off  in  the  room  assigned  me  and  another 
chap,  and  there  I  was  nailed  for  a  mess  of  pottage  ! 
The  man  probably  knew  from  the  cut  of  my  jib 
that  if  I  ate  the  breakfast  I  wouldn't  renig  on  what 
he  wanted  of  me,  and  he  was  right.  Real  coffee, 
yaller-legged  chickens,  hot  biscuits  and  corn  bread, 
pancakes  and  honey — say,  I'd  have  gone  on  and 
sung  Lohengrin  without  knowing  a  bar  of  it  for 
that  breakfast. 

"'Simple  part — Count  Paris,'  the  boss  ham 
started  in  to  tell  me  when  I  went  up  to  his  room 


136         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

with  him  and  he  brought  out  a  couple  of  corncob 
pipes.  c  The  count  has  always  been  esteemed  more 
or  less  of  a  dub — er— no  insinuation,  you  know — 
with  reference  to  my  picking  you  out  for  the  part, 
you  see — but  we  strive  to  live  up  to  the  traditions 
of  the  Dray-ma,  and  I  don't  feel  like  cutting  him 

out  altogether.     Now,  his  first  entrance ' 

u  Well,  he  got  out  a  prompt  book  and  for  an  hour 
he  drilled  Count  Paris  into  me.  I  regarded  the 
whole  proposition  out  of  the  tail  of  my  eye,  but  I 
had  that  breakfast  in  me,  and  I  wasn't  going  to 
take  to  the  cactus  and  leave  the  man  who  had  pro 
vided  it  Count  Parisless.  After  the  boss  ham  got 
through  with  me,  the  whole  bunch  went  over  to  the 
op'ry  house,  which  was  a  kind  of  a  Hibernian  hall 
layout  over  a  drug  store,  and  we  rehearsed.  Well, 
say,  I  was  pretty  bad — I'm  not  trying  to  dodge 
that — but  it  was  a  stand-off  and  play  the  high  card. 
It  was  a  split  between  me  and  the  rest  of  'em. 
The  only  difference  was  that  they  knew  their  lines 
and  I  didn't.  Of  all  the — well,  that  James  Owen 
O'Conner  bunch  that  we  had  back  here  in  New 
York  twelve  or  thirteen  years  ago  wasn't  one,  two, 
three.  How  they'd  ever  got  as  far  away  from 
Kansas  City,  where  they'd  organized,  as  Minonk, 
without  being  cabbaged  and  egged  into  the  railroad 
hospitals  along  the  line,  had  me  guessing,  and  my 


TALE  THE  EIGHTH  137 

finish  began  to  loom  up  before  me.  But,  as  I  say, 
I'd  broken  bread  with  the  main  guy,  and,  at  that, 
there  were  two  days'  meals  and  a  ten-spot  in  sight 
for  my  two  Count  Paris  stunts,  and  I  couldn't  pass 
the  game  up.  I  got  the  Count's  lines  by  six  o'clock, 
that  evening  so  I  could  say  them  backward  and 
translate  them  into  Plattdeutsch  as  I  went  along, 
and  when  I  put  on  the  uniform  and  stood  in  the 
wings  waiting  to  go  on,  I  felt  fit  to  put  up  the 
scrap  of  my  life.  I  thought  I  was  trained  to  a  hair. 
Well,  I  tripped  in  going  on,  which  was  a  kind  of 
a  bad  break  seeing  that  I  landed  on  the  scene — 
which,  by  the  way,  looked  as  much  like  Verona  as 
Pell  street  does — head  foremost.  I  lay  there  wait 
ing  for  'em  to  count  the  ten  seconds  on  me  and 
carry  me  to  my  corner,  when  I  got  poked  with  a 
pole  from  behind,  and  then  I  got  up  and  started  in 
with  my  little  spiel.  Say,  even  the  jays  in  front — 
there  were  about  300  of  'em — got  up  and  hollered. 
It  must  ha*  been  funny  for  them,  and  that's  a 
fact,  but  for  me  it  was  just  the  merry  garrote  and 
nothing  else  in  life.  Their  howls  choked  me  off 
and  made  me  forget  all  those  carefully-memorized 
lines.  The  main  guy  stood  in  the  wings,  tearing 
out  hunks  of  his  pompadour  Romeo  wig  and 
bawling  my  lines  at  me,  and,  finally,  amid  the  yowls 
of  all  the  farmers  in  front,  I  got  a  harpoon  into  the 


138        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

lines,  and  just  ran  away  with  'em.  I  spat  'em  all 
out  like  a  phonograph  that's  working  under  a 
pressure  of  2,000  amperes  and  some  odd  volts,  and 
then  I  bolted.  I  was  a  frost,  I  felt  that. 

"  '  Great,  my  boy  !  '  said  the  boss  ham,  patting 
me  on  the  shoulder.  '  You're  great !  You're  a 
wonder  !  You're  engaged  for  forty-two  weeks  ! 
Just  one  or  two  more  rehearsals,  and  you'll  be  a 
tower  of  strength  and  a  steel  stanchion!  Just  a 
few  little  craggy  edges  to  be  rubbed  off  at  rehearsal, 
and  you'll ' 

u  I  looked  him  over  carefully  to  see  whether  he 
was  insane  or  just  guying  me,  but  he  averted  my 
suspicions  by  shaking  my  hand  like  a  pump  handle 
and  then  rushing  on  to  do  his  own  little  stunt. 

"  I  pinched  myself  to  find  out  whether  I'd  been 
fooling  with  a  yen-hok,  but  there  I  was  Count 
Paris,  and  a  holy  show,  all  right,  all  right.  The 
rest  of  that  night's  all  a  dream.  All  I  can  remem 
ber  of  it  is  the  wild  tumult  of  the  hayseeds  out  in 
front  every  time  I  showed  up,  and  the  main  ham 
shaking  my  mitt  and  telling  me  what  a  wonder  I 
was. 

"  When,  in  the  patent  insides  Minonk  paper  I 
saw  the  next  morning  that  criticism  that  I  had 
started  to  read  to  you,  I  naturally  reflected  that, 
after  all,  despite  the  boss  ham's  encouragement,  I 


TALE  THE  EIGHTH  139 

might  not  be  altogether  a  spectacular  success  as  an 
intrepreter  of  the  Bard,  and  I  told  Romeo  that  I 
was  going  to  pass  my  job  up — that  no  mortal  coin 
could  ever  bribe  me  to  tog  out  in  the  Count  Paris 
rig  again. 

"'The  man  who  wrote  that  criticism,'  said  the 
main  guy,  solemnly,  c  has  about  as  much  of  an  idea 
of  the  inner,  occult  meaning  of  the  Dray-ma  as  the 
mound-builders  had  of  long-distance  telephones. 
My  boy,  the  house  is  sold  out  for  to-night — 350 
pat — and  if  you  desert  us  now  we're  ruined — abso 
lutely  ruined  !  Come  ahead,  now,  and  I'll  just 
put  you  on  to  how  that  second  scene  ought  to  be 
done  to  get  all  the  meat  out  of  it.  You  enter 
here ' 

"  Well,  he  was  a  pretty  good  con  man,  and  he 
nailed  me  for  that  positively  last  and  final  appear 
ance.  He  told  me  that  this  was  his  last  show  on 
earth  to  haul  down  a  few  dollars,  and  that  it  would 
be  just  plain  manslaughter  if  I  went  back  on  him. 
Then  we  had  eleven  drinks  of  corn-liquor  together, 
and  when  I  got  those  beneath  my  belt  I  was  ready 
for  any  old  thing. 

"So  I  went  on  again.  The  house  was  packed. 
The  audience  was  deadly  quiet  until  I  went  on, 
and  then — well,  you'd  never  suppose  that  one  state 
could  produce  so  many  invalid  eggs,  passe  turnips, 


140         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

and  cabbages  that  had  seen  better  days  as  sailed 
right  in  my  direction  when  I  popped  out.  I  didn't 
get  hit  at  all.  I  was  foxy  enough  to  be  looking 
for  something  like  that,  and  I  bobbed  back  into  the 
wings  when  I  saw  the  first  hayseed  stand  up  in  the 
orchestra  and  give  the  signal.  The  Pell  street 
scene  got  the  whole  shower.  The  three  handed 
orchestra  struck  up  a  tune,  but  I  didn't  wait  to  hear 
the  finish  of  it.  I  hadn't  lost  any  orchestra  tunes. 
I  took  a  walk  out  in  my  Count  Paris  clothes  to  see 
how  the  evening  was  holding  up,  and  I  heard  the 
rumbling  of  a  freight  in  the  distance.  The  freight 
slowed  up  in  passing  through  Minonk  and  I  made 
it  stick  all  right.  I  wasn't  thinking  how  I  was  go 
ing  to  look  under  the  mellow  sunlight  of  the  next 
morning  in  those  red  tights  and  the  'Visigoth 
tunic/  All  I  wanted  to  do  was  to  vacate  Minonk. 
"  I  left  the  freight  at  Peoria  at  three  o'clock  the 
next  morning,  and  at  dawn,  while  I  was  hovering 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  I  got  a  lift  from  a 
medecine  fakir  who  was  just  driving  into  Peoria  in 
his  perambulating  pharmacy.  He  told  me  after 
ward  that  it  was  his  first  idea,  when  he  saw  me 
ploughing  along  the  road,  to  shoot  me  full  of  holes, 
but  upon  getting  a  good  look  at  my  make-up  he 
had  concluded  that  he  could  use  me  in  his  business. 
He  did  use  me.  I  stood  up  beside  him  in  his 


TALE  THE  EIGHTH  14* 

wagon  togged  out  in  that  Count  Paris  rig,  and 
served  out  medicine  for  him  for  a  month.  I  at 
tracted  trade  for  him.  People  came  miles  to  see 
me.  The  fakir  gave  me  another  suit  to  wear 
while  off  duty,  but  he  insisted  on  the  red  cotton 
tights  and  the  Visigoth  tunic  while  he  was  peddling 
corn  salve  and  stuff  from  his  wagon.  He  wanted 
me  to  cover  the  whole  state  of  Illinois  with  him 
when  we  had  finished  Peoria,  but  I  passed  and  he 
paid  me  off. 

"The  trouble  with  me,  when  I  was  on  the 
stage,  was  that  I  didn't  become  wedded  to  my 
art." 


TALE  THE  NINTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  17  HATH  His  SAY 
ANENT  THE  INCALCULABLE  EFFECT  OF  YE 
GOOD  FRONT 


TALE  THE  NINTH 

WHEREIN  EX-TANK  NO.  IJ  HATH  HIS  SAY  ANENT 
THE  INCALCULABLE  EFFECT  OF  YE  GOOD 
FRONT 

"  WE  often  revert,  in  these  proceedings,"  said 
Ex-Tank  No.  17  of  the  Harlem  Club  of  Former 
Alcoholic  Degenerates,  twisting  his  three-stone 
diamond  ring  with  a  preoccupied  air, u  to  the  incal 
culable  value — particularly  to  persons  who  are 
wont  to  become  insolvent  at  the  wind-up  of  tu 
multuous,  personally  conducted  carnivals  of  joy — 
of  that  seemliness  in  raiment  and  general  appear 
ance  which  is  technically  known  as  a  front.  A 
suddenly-arrested,  punctured  jag  that  discovers  you 
frontless  at  the  awakening  is  one  of  life's  tragedies. 
Frontless  men  do  win  out,  of  course  ;  we  all  know 
that ;  but  the  progress  of  the  frontless  win-out  is 
craggy  and  disheartening.  The  frontless  man  is 
the  recipient  of  the  dead  face,  otherwise  the  cold 
storage  countenance,  until  he  is  sorely  tempted  to 
hold  up  the  clothing  store  dummies  that  flap  their 
arms,  beckoningly,  on  the  sidewalks  before  the 
145 


146         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

windows.  It  is  simply  trite  to  say  that  a  front  is 
of  value  to  the  busted  man.  It's  his  whole  stock 
in  trade.  It's  the  complete  works.  It's  the  sec 
ond  wheel  to  a  sulky. 

"  I  never  in  my  life,  at  any  time,  or  anywhere, 
landed  without  a  front.  I  have  made  a  meal  off 
immature  turnips,  hand-dug,  and  I  have  been  re 
duced  to  the  necessity  of  absorbing  none  but  the 
three-cent  article  of  cochineal  fluid,  compounded 
chiefly  of  sweet  chewing  tobacco  and  wood  alco 
hol,  and  dipped  from  a  barrel  by  means  of  a  tin 
cup.  But  I  always  gave  ear  unto  the  foxy  whisper 
that  buzzed  beneath  my  chapeau  the  advice,'  Keep 
up  your  front/  I  have  got  up  at  dawn  in  the 
morning  when  I  needed  about  three  so  bad  that  I 
could  hear  jaguars  baying  at  the  morning  star ;  but 
I've  erased  the  hair  from  my  face  with  a  razor  that 
I  could  hardly  hold  in  my  mitt,  and  changed  the 
linen,  and  rubbed  off  the  shoes,  and  brushed  off 
the  togs,  and  inked  the  hat  when  it  needed  it,  be 
fore  going  forth  after  those  sorely  required  life- 
savers.  Because  why  ?  Because  I  always  felt  and 
knew  that,  without  a  front,  a  man  might  just  as 
well  resign  himself  to  sobriety  and  to  featureless, 
plodding  days ;  that  he's  a  deceased  one  ;  and  that 
the  cordial  paw  and  the  wreathed  smile  of  men 
are  not  for  him.  Your  front  may  be  naught  but 


TALE  THE  NINTH  147 

a  whited  sepulchre — but  hang  on  to  it.  Go  down 
the  bay  and  procure  suit,  hat,  shoes,  collar,  cuffs, 
and  necktie,  the  complete  rig  while  you  wait — for 
$2.90,  and  blow  in  the  other  dime  for  a  carnation 
for  your  buttonhole — but  make  the  stab  for  the 
front.  And  when  you  land  again  on  top  of  the 
tally-ho,  with  horns  a-blowing,  corks  a-popping, 
and  the  sun  a-shining  on  both  sides  of  the  road, 
make  up  your  mind  that  the  next  time  you  get 
ditched  you'll  stick  to  your  front  like  a  flea  to  a 
French  poodle — that  you'll  spout  the  watch  and 
the  ring  and  the  pin,  if  it  comes  to  that,  but  cling 
to  the  front-making  togs  ;  thus  you'll " 

"  Is  Seventeen  aware  that  he  is  addressing  an  ag 
gregation  of  Ex-Tanks,  who  have  left  all  of  these 
things  behind,"  interrupted  Ex-Tank  No.  7,  the 
parliamentarian  and  kicker,  "  or  has  he  tranced 
himself  back  to  his  own  mixed-ale  period,  so  that 
he  thinks  he's  spieling  advice  for  a  bunch  of  active, 
non-extinct  Tanks  who've " 

"  The  Sweep-Up  will  place  Seven  in  the  sweat- 
box  and  keep  him  there  with  the  full  head  of  steam 
turned  on  for  thirty-five  minutes,"  said  the  Chief 
Ex-Tank,  rising  and  frowning  heavily.  "  Seven 
teen,  you  may  proceed." 

When  the  parliamentarian  and  kicker  had  been 
dragged  from  the  room — in  accordance  with  fre- 


148        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

quent  non-availing  threats  that  the  same  would 
happen  to  him  if  he  did  not  belay  his  interruptions 
— and  securely  locked  in  the  folding  steam  bath, 
Ex-Tank  No.  17  proceeded  : 

"  Well,  I  was  going  to  toss  you  a  few  in  illus 
tration  of  how  inestimably  valuable  my  dogged 
adhesion  to  a  front  has  been  on  a  few  occasions. 
Take  a  hard  game  that  I  bucked  into  once  out  in 
Spokane,  for  example.  I  might  have  been  made 
to  break  enough  rock  to  macadamize  two  miles  of 
Spokane  road  if  hadn't  dropped  anchor  there  with 
a  front.  I  had  been  indulging  in  two  months  of 
wooze  and  sog  and  rummy  sub-conscious  poesy  in 
St.  Paul,  and  that's  where  I  left  my  gig-lamps  and 
everything  else  but  the  front.  I  clung  to  the  grip- 
ful  of  togs,  as  well  as  those  I  had  on,  when  I 
needed,  and  needed  bad,  the  moist  things  I  could 
have  traded  them  for.  I  got  a  ride  out  of  St.  Paul 
on  a  mail  train.  It  was  against  regulations,  but 
the  railway  postal  clerk  who  offered  me  the  ride — 
I'd  known  him  back  this  way — took  a  chance.  It 
was  arranged  that  I  should  duck  beneath  a  pile  of 
empty  mail  bags  in  a  corner  of  the  car  should  any 
inspector  hop  aboard  along  the  route ;  but  this 
didn't  happen  and  I  had  a  pretty  comfortable  ride. 
We  were  headed  west,  and  my  friend  the  clerk 
was  going  as  far  as  Spokane  ;  and  so  was  I,  of 


TALE  THE  NINTH  149 

course,  not,  as  I  say,  having  the  cash  wherewith  to 
proceed  any  farther.  As  far  as  clothes  went,  I 
looked  like  ready  money,  and  my  grip  was  stuffed 
full  of  clean  linen.  When  we  were  pulling  into 
Spokane — it  was  about  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening — 
I  gave  myself  the  dusting  and  the  primping  of  my 
life,  and  my  friend  the  clerk  passed  me  a  one. 

"  '  You  can  hurl  'em  a  bigger  bluff  with  that  than 
I  could  with  a  thousand/  he  said,  flatteringly,  and 
I  bowed  my  thanks,  shook  him  cordially  by  the 
hand  and  left  the  train.  I  stepped  into  the  'bus  of 
the  best  hotel  in  Spokane,  and  was  driven  thereto 
in  some  state — the  only  passenger — with  my  bulg 
ing,  well-labelled  grip  alongside  of  me.  A  porter 
was  at  the  door  to  drag  the  grip  in,  and  I  followed 
after  him,  shoulders  back,  head  way  up  in  the  air, 
cane  and  umbrella  strapped  together,  swinging  like 
a  mace.  From  the  door  I  saw  the  clerk  beginning 
to  screw  his  face  up  for  a  welcome.  It  looked 
good,  so  far.  The  bar  was  right  to  the  left  of  the 
hotel  desk.  I  sheered  off,  before  going  up  to  the 
desk,  and  strolled  over  there.  The  barkeep  in 
clined  his  ear. 

"  c  Er — um — let's  see,'  said  I,  clearing  my  throat 
sonorously  and  patting  my  stomach,  'just  make  me 
up  a  very  dry  Martigny — dash  of  Curacoa — cherry 
in  it." 


150        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

" l  That's  a  new  one  on  me,  Cap,'  said  the  bar- 
keep.  c  Can  make  you  a  plain  cocktail/ 

"  I  shuddered. 

u  '  No,  just  a  plain  drop  of  that  gold  seal,  then/ 
said  I,  with  a  lot  of  exterior  disappointment,  point 
ing  to  the  bottle. 

"  The  barkeep  passed  the  bottle  over  and  wiped 
the  glass  very  carefully  before  putting  it  down.  I 
poured  out  a  very  small  one — I  wanted  a  hooter, 
but  I  was  looking  for  effect,  not  joy,  just  then — 
and  tossed  it  off,  with  a  lot  of  critical  after-smack 
ing.  Then  I  pulled  a  crumpled  dollar  out  of  my 
vest-pocket — after  reaching  into  my  breast  pocket 
as  if  for  my  wallet — and  tossed  it  on  the  bar. 
Then  I  picked  up  my  seventy-five  cents  in  change 
and  walked  over  to  the  desk,  where  the  clerk  was 
holding  a  pen,  handle  outward,  for  me. 

u'Er — humph! — have  you  a  room  with  a 
bawth  ? '  I  asked  him. 

"'Sorry,  sir,'  he  replied,  'but  we're  just  having 
the  baths  put  in.  Got  a  nice  two-room  suite, 
second  floor  front,  for  you,  though.' 

"  I  looked  a  whole  lot  grieved  about  the  no-bath 
proposition,  and  harped  on  it  quite  a  few,  and  then 
took  the  two-room  suite — ten  dollars  per  diem, 
American  plan.  I  couldn't  help  it  if  that  clerk 
figured  me  to  be  a  post  office  inspector,  which  I 


TALE  THE  NINTH  151 

afterward  found  he  did.  I'd  got  in  on  a  mail  train, 
and  his  assumption  was  natural.  I  had  the  front 
and  the  haughtiness  that  comes  from  a  front; 
otherwise  I  might  have  been  c  vagged  '  in  Spokane 
just  twenty  minutes  after  getting  off  the  train — for 
the  place  was  full  of  hoboes  and  grafters,  and  they 
were  running  them  in  in  sets  of  fours. 

"  I  went  up  to  my  suite,  called  for  a  lot  of  hotel 
stationery  wherewith  to  write  letters,  and  stayed  up 
there  half  an  hour  or  so  in  order  to  make  it  ap 
pear  that  I  was  writing  letters.  Then  I  went 
downstairs,  had  a  good  dinner — I  kicked  mildly 
because  the  house  couldn't  furnish  the  brand  of 
Sauterne  I  liked,  and  the  steward  sent  me  word 
that  he'd  order  it,  and  I  thought  somewhat  mourn 
fully  about  those  seventy-five  cents.  I  felt  that 
something  had  got  to  happen. 

"I  walked  out  to  the  front  of  the  hotel  and 
caught  the  rattle  of  the  chips,  and  the  click  of  the 
marble  in  the  wheel,  proceeding  from  a  brilliantly 
lighted  and  wide  open  plant  across  the  street.  I 
strolled  over  there  as  it  was  as  swagger  a  layout  as 
I  ever  saw — five  bank  outfits,  with  varying  limits, 
wheel,  red-and-black,  craps,  stud,  the  whole  works. 
There  were  big  crowds  around  all  the  faro  layouts, 
and  I  could  hardly  see  the  tables  for  the  men  stand 
ing  behind  the  chairs  and  making  bets. 


152         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

u  l  Here,'  said  I  to  myself,  '  is  where  I  either  be 
come  the  depository  for  sundry  and  divers  leaden 
capsules  or  acquire  a  stake/ 

"  So  I  walked  up  to  the  big-limit-table.  All  the 
chairs  were  held  down,  and  men  were  standing  two 
deep  behind  them,  betting  when  they  could.  They 
were  calling  out  to  the  dealer  to  place  markers  for 
them  when  they  couldn't  reach  over.  I  got  a  peep 
at  the  chart  of  the  man  sitting  in  front  of  me,  and  I 
liked  the  king  open. 

" '  I'll  bet  you  a  hundred  the  king  wins,'  said  I 
to  the  dealer,  smoothly,  sticking  my  head  between 
the  shoulders  of  a  couple  of  chaps  in  front  of 
me. 

" '  You're  on,'  said  the  dealer,  and  he  put  a 
marker  on  the  king  for  the  hundred  that  I  didn't 
have.  If  the  king  lost  I  stood  to  get  riddled  while 
making  for  the  door  at  a  lope — but  I  needed  the 
money.  I  watched  the  turns,  when  I  could  rub 
berneck  over  the  shoulders  of  the  fellows  in  front 
of  me,  with  a  whole  heap  of  excitement. 

"The  king  came  out  on  the  right  side. 

" '  Whose  marker  is  this  ?  '  asked  the  dealer. 

" '  Mine,'  said  I,  squeezing  through  so  that  he 
could  see  me.  c  Just  let  it  stand.' 

"  It  was  a  cold  bluff  and  a  hard  chance  to  take 
when  \  had  the  $200  right  in  my  mitt,  and  could 


TALE  THE  NINTH  153 

have  cashed  and  come  away.  But  I  guess  the  old 
fever  had  got  into  me. 

"  The  king  won  again. 

"'Just  let  me  have  checks  for  about  a  hun 
dred,'  said  I  to  the  dealer,  and  just  then  the  man 
seated  in  front  of  me  passed  out  and  I  took  his 
seat.  The  dealer  passed  me  over  ten  ten-dol 
lar  chips  and  $100  in  eagles,  which  I  stuffed  into 
my  pocket  wearily.  I  played  on  for  two  hours. 
Then  I  yawned  quite  heavily,  said  something  about 
being  sleepy,  cashed  in  $900  worth  of  chips,  walked 
over  to  the  hotel,  split  a  quart  of  dry  with  the  hotel 
clerk,  went  up  to  my  suite,  and  made  monkey  faces 
at  myself  in  the  glass  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 

"That's  how  a  front  pulled  me  out  in  Spokane. 

"  Here's  another  little  one  about  how  a  front 
helped  me  : 

"  I  got  into  Omaha,  hopelessly  sober,  busted, 
but  still  with  the  front,  one  beautiful  June  morning 
at  six  o'clock.  There  was  nothing  doing.  I  was 
guessing.  My  grip  had  been  attached  at  Des 
Moines,  and  so  I  couldn't  put  up  at  a  hotel.  It  is 
a  weird  thing  to  be  broke  in  Omaha. 

"  I  strolled  up  from  the  station  and  reached  the 
business  section  before  seven  o'clock.  I  passed  by  a 
big  department  store.  The  doors  were  wide  open, 
and  the  porters  were  cleaning  the  place  out  pre- 


154        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

paratory  to  the  beginning  of  business  at  eight 
o'clock.  I  stopped  before  the  carpet  window. 
There  was  a  sign  in  the  window  :  c  Carpets, 
second  floor;  run  up  and  look  at  the  stock.'  A 
middle-aged,  countrified-looking  couple  strolled  up 
to  the  window  as  I  stood  there,  and  began  pointing 
out  to  each  other  the  kind  of  carpets  they  were 
going  to  buy. 

" '  I  wisht  these  consarned,  lazy  store-folks  'ud 
come  daown  and  open  up  business,'  I  heard  the 
man  say. 

"  I  walked  up  to  him  and  said  : 

"  '  Are  you  thinking  of  purchasing  carpets,  sir? ' 

"  c  Wall,  thet's  whut  we  come  all  th'  way  from 
Hastings  fur,  young  man,'  said  the  farmer.  '  But 
these  taown  folks  'pear  to  lie  abed  so  long.' 

"  '  Why,'  said  I,  '  I'm  the  manager  of  this  estab 
lishment's  carpet  department.  I'm  always  down 
ahead  of  the  clerks.  If  you'll  kindly  step  up  to 
the  second  floor  with  me,  I'll  be  pleased  to  show 
you  our  goods.' 

u  That  was  too  dead  easy  for  anything.  They 
followed  me  through  the  main  entrance.  I  tripped 
in  in  a  jaunty,  this-is-where-I-belong  sort  of  way, 
and  my  business-like,  at-home  manner  conned  the 
porters.  They  didn't  stop  me.  I  conducted  the 
country  couple  up  to  the  second  floor.  I  didn't 


TALE  THE  NINTH  155 

know  the  difference  between  a  strip  of  ingrain 
carpet  and  a  piece  of  Gobelin  tapestry — but,  as  I 
say,  it's  something  fierce  and  savage  to  be  broke  in 
Omaha,  and  I  needed  the  money  again.  I  showed 
the  country  people  the  carpets,  and  they  picked  out 
what  they  liked.  On  every  roll  there  was  a  tag 
showing  the  price  per  yard,  and  that  enabled  me  to 
prance  through  my  bluff.  They  tried  to  dicker  me 
down,  but  I  wouldn't  stand  for  it. 

"  '  Ours  is  a  strictly  one-price  house,'  I  told  'em, 
'  and  it  would  be  more  than  my  position  is  worth 
to  make  a  single  reduction.' 

"  While  I  was  engaged  in  showing  them  the 
carpets,  the  carpet-clerks  swarmed  in.  They  fig 
ured  that  I  was  probably  a  new  clerk,  and  paid  little 
or  no  attention  to  me.  When  I  had  sold  the  rural 
couple  $250  worth  of  carpets,  I  asked  one  of  the 
clerks  where  I  could  find  the  manager.  He  told 
me.  I  found  the  manager. 

ucOn  what  basis  am  I  working  in  your  carpet 
department  ? '  I  asked  him.  '  Salary  or  commission  ? ' 

"  He  sized  me  up  with  a  surprised  mug. 

u  i  How  long  have  you  been  working  in  the  car 
pet  department  ? '  he  asked  me. 

" l  Since  about  a  quarter  past  seven  this  morn 
ing,'  I  replied,  and  then  I  told  him  about  it. 

"  c  Well,  of  all   the  infernal,  colossal    gall   and 


156         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

cheek ! '  he  kept  saying,  and  then  he  broke  into  a 
grin.  When  I  told  how  I  had  the  old  pair  up 
stairs,  and  nailed  for  $250  worth  of  carpets,  he 
said,  '  I'll  be  damned  ! '  I  knew  that  it  was  all  right. 

uc  Suppose  you  just  make  the  commission  ten 
per  cent,  on  the  sale,'  I  suggested  to  him  persua 
sively,  and  he  broke  into  a  roar. 

"  c  Go  back  and  finish  attending  to  your  custo 
mers,'  he  directed,  and  I  did.  The  farmer  paid 
me  spot  cash,  and  I  saw  them  to  the  door  with 
arm-waves  and  repeated  invitations  to  '  come  in 
and  see  us  again/  The  manager  was  watching  it 
all  and  holding  his  sides.  After  the  couple  had 
gone,  he  called  me  into  his  office  and  handed 
me  $25. 

"  'You  may  stay  here  on  that  basis,  if  you  like,' 
said  he. 

"  '  I  like,'  said  I. 

" '  But  you  needn't  mention  it  to  any  of  the 
other  clerks  that  you're  on  commission,'  he  went 
on.  '  They're  on  salaries,  and  not  very  large  ones. 
Understand  ?  ' 

"  I  understood. 

"That's  how  front  won  me  out  in  Omaha.  If 
I  had  tried  to  turn  that  trick,  looking  like  a  hobo, 
I'd  have  been  run  in  for  a  moral,  and  got  about 
two  years. 


TALE  THE  NINTH  157 

"  I  sold  carpets,  without  knowing  anything 
whatever  about  carpets  at  that  plant  for  a  month, 
and  my  commissions  averaged  nearly  $80  a  week. 
I  grabbed  everybody  that  dropped  off  at  the  second 
floor,  going  and  coming,  both  ends  from  the  mid 
dle,  and  made  'em  buy  carpets,  and  when  I  quit 
with  a  stake  at  the  end  of  the  month  the  other 
clerks  in  the  carpet  department  were  ready  to  as 
sassinate  me  for  being  the  whole  works,  not  to  say 
It  with  the  manager." 

Then  all  the  Ex-Tanks  joined  in  the  chorus : 

Oh,  the  frontless  man 
Is  an  also  ran, 
But  the  duck  with  the  front  is  a  live  one. 

Then  the  meeting  adjourned. 


TALE  THE  TENTH 


IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  19  HATH  STRANGE  AND 
WONDERFUL  LUCK  THROUGH  MAN'S  FRIEND, 
YE  DOG 


TALE  THE  TENTH 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.  19  HATH  STRANGE  AND 
WONDERFUL  LUCK  THROUGH  MAN'S  FRIEND,  YE 
DOG 

"!F  it  hadn't  been  for  those  dogs,"  remarked 
Ex-Tank  No.  19,  "  maybe  I'd  be  trying  to  sell 
patent  lamp  chimney  cleaners  from  door  to  door  in 
St.  Louis  yet." 

"  Well,  it  takes  dogs  to  win  races  in  St.  Loo,  all 
correct,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank,  with  a  reminis 
cent  expression  in  his  eyes. 

"  This  bunch  of  dogs  that  won  me  out  of  St. 
Louis,  though,"  said  No.  19,  "  didn't  happen  to  be 
that  kind  of  dogs.  They  were  real  dogs,  dog  dogs, 
with  one-inch  tails,  enough  of  the  rubberneck  strain 
mixed  with  their  thoroughbred  blood  to  supply  the 
population  of  an  up-state  village,  and  likewise  the 
destructiveness  of  street-car  strikers.  That  is  to 
say,  they  were  fox-terrier  pups,  three  of  'em  in  a 
row,  the  handsomest  I  ever  saw,  before  or  since, 
and  no  one  of  'em  better'n  the  other  when  it  came 
to  cute  devilishness.  I  found  them." 
161 


1 62        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"  Lucky  chap,  aren't  you  ?  "  broke  in  No.  7,  the 
parliamentarian  and  kicker,  sarcastically.  "  You 
were  always  rinding  something  at  just  the  right 
minute  when  you  were  up  against  it,  weren't  you  ? 
But,  say,  when  you  try  to  heave  it  into  us  that  you 
found  three  thoroughbred  fox-terrier  pups  alto 
gether  in  a  bunch,  why,  you'll  just  excuse  me,  for 
one,  if  I " 

"  I  found  them,  or  as  good  as  found  them," 
calmly  resumed  No.  19.  "They  just  fell  my 
way.  I  happened  on  'em.  I  drew  them.  They 
dropped  to  me.  I  won  'em.  Any  old  way,  for 
peace  and  a  quiet  life.  And  seeing  that,  up  to  the 
win-out  of  which  that  incident  was  the  beginning, 
I  never  got  anything  out  of  St.  Louis  except  a  large 
green  stack  of  uncashable  tickets,  and,  after  that,  a 
must  job  peddling  patent  lamp  chimney  cleaners  from 
shack  to  shack,  taking  a  chance  on  boiling  water 
and  rolling  pins  right  along,  maybe  Seven'll  let  me 
get  away  with  my  statement  about  those  pups." 

"  If  Seven  cuts  in  again  he'll  do  three-quarters 
of  an  hour  in  the  new  folding  bath,"  said  the  Chief 
Ex-Tank,  sternly. 

"  I  took  $700  and  a  two-ended  high-ball  skate 
with  me  into  St.  Louis  that  time,"  resumed  No. 
19,  u  after  having  been  real  good  up  in  Chicago  for 
four  months.  When  I  got  through  with  the  East 


TALE  THE  TENTH  163 

St.  Louis  game — it  only  took  me  ten  days  to  get 
through  with  it — I  had  the  bundle  of  green  tickets 
all  ready  for  framing,  most  of  'em  at  three  to  five  on 
or  thereabouts,  and  several  pink  giraffes  following 
me  around  and  beating  me  out  by  necks  at  every 
stage  of  the  route.  Not  having  the  price  of  a  rest 
in  a  bug-ward  at  twenty-five  per,  with  the  soothing 
music  of  the  chapel  organ  playing  down  below, 
and  being  opposed  for  reasons  which  will  here  be 
apprehended  to  the  no-pay  bug-wards,  I  got  enough 
on  my  other  suit  to  buy  a  fifty-cent-per  room  for  a 
week.  Then  I  laid  down  and  had  it  out  with  the 
pink  giraffes  all  by  my  lonesome.  That's  only  a 
bad  memory  now,  but  it  was  black  tragedy  while  it 
was  going  on.  At  the  end  of  four  days  I  got  up, 
bought  a  two-cent  paper,  and  looked  over  the 
'  Help  Wanted  '  column.  I  didn't  know  then  that 
nobody  ever  wants  any  help  in  St.  Louis  except 
strangers  who  go  up  against  the  town,  and  the 
most  of  these  only  want  transportation  out.  The 
only  thing  I  saw  that  was  a  fit  for  me,  or  anything 
like  it,  was  the  patent  lamp  chimney  cleaner.  I 
took  a  bunch  of  'em  out,  with  the  understanding 
that  I  was  to  get  a  dime  for  every  one  of  them  I 
sold.  I  sold  twelve  the  first  day,  after  trying  'em 
on  at  about  1,200  different  wickieups  and  then  I 
ate  and  meditated.  I  longed  to  separate  myself 


1 64        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

from  St.  Loo,  but  they  watch  the  freight-yards 
pretty  closely  there,  and  the  man  who  gets  out  of 
that  town  on  a  blind  baggage  is  a  four-ply  baby 
and  a  wonder.  So  I  took  up  the  trudge  with  my 
armful  of  patent  lamp  chimney  cleaners  bright  and 
early  the  next  morning,  with  the  idea  of  selling 
enough  of  them  to  buy  a  two  dollar  ticket  to  any 
old  place.  I  was  walking  along  Fourth  avenue, 
wondering  what  the  old  gang  in  New  York  would 
think  of  me  if  they  could  see  me  ringing  basement 
door-bells  and  getting  the  quick  chase  from  kinky- 
headed  hash-slingers,  when  I  heard  a  sharp  '  Ps-st ! ' 
coming  from  a  doorway.  The  street  was  pretty 
well  thronged — for  St.  Louis — but  I  looked  around 
to  see  whence  the  sound  proceeded.  I  saw  a  sharp- 
faced,  grey-mustached,  seedy-looking  chap  stand 
ing  in  the  entrance  to  an  office  building  and  nod 
ding  me  toward  him.  He  had  three  swell  little  fox- 
terrier  pups  tied  by  three  strings.  I  was  apparently 
the  man  he  wanted,  for  he  grinned  nervously  as  I 
walked  over  toward  him. 

"  c  I  t'ought  by  your  looks  you  might  ha'  b'en  a 
lag,'  was  the  polite  way  he  addressed  me, '  and  w'en 
you  answered  th'  signal  I  knowed  it/ 

"  Perhaps  some  of  you  fellows  don't  know  that 
the  sharp  '  Ps-st ! '  is  the  way  convicts  attract  each 
others'  attention. 


TALE  THE  TENTH  165 

"'You  overwhelm  me  with  your  confidence, 
Sammy,'  I  started  to  say,  'but,  at  that,  I  think 
you've  got  your  piping-off  lamps  a  bit  twisted 
and ' 

" '  Stow  that,  pal/  he  broke  in.  c  I  ain't  a  six- 
year-old,  and  if  you  haven't  done  a  few  bits,  by  the 
looks  of  ye,  I'm  a  smoker,  which  I  ain't.  Got  no 
time  t'  chaw  anyhow.  Just  take  these  pups  for 
me.  I  just  seen  a  fly  sleut'  from  Pittsburg  pass 
along,  and  I  wouldn't  be  s'prised  if  he's  nosin'  for 
me.  I  done  a  job  up  that  way  a  few  weeks  ago, 
and  nearly  all  th'  rest  o'  the  gang's  doin'  their  bits 
now.  I  ain't  takin'  chances,  and  I  got  t'  drill. 
Just  annex  these  pups — they're  t'oroughbreds  and 
th'  real  t'ing — and  see  wot  ye  can  make  outen  'em. 
You  look  like  you  need  th'  cush.  So  do  I,  but 
there's  not  enough  room  for  me  and  that  wise 
sleut'  from  Smokeburg  in  th'  same  town.  So  I'll 
just  take  a  chase.  Sell  th'  pups,  and  if  ever  I  run 
acrost  ye,  you  can  make  good  if  you've  got  it  on 
ye.  S'long.' 

"And  he  was  off,  with  the  quickest  shuffle, 
neither  a  run  nor  a  walk,  that  I  ever  saw  a  man 
put  up.  In  ten  seconds  he  was  mixed  with  the 
crowd,  and  I  had  three  strings,  each  attached  to  a 
tugging  little  devil  of  a  fox-terrier,  in  my  right 
mitt.  It  was  the  suddenest  game  I  had  stacked  up 


166        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

against  in  a  long  while.  For  a  minute  after  the 
crook  had  disappeared  I  didn't  quite  know  whether 
to  get  hot  or  to  laugh  over  his  mistaking  me  for 
one  of  the  lag  tribe.  When  I  reflected  upon  the 
rather  bum  front  I  was  putting  up,  though,  with  a 
week's  growth  of  beard  on  my  face,  and  perhaps 
the  hang-dog  air  which  the  highest  stepping  human 
proposition  on  earth  will  exhibit  when  he's  down 
proper  and  up  against  it,  I  couldn't  blame  the  crook, 
and  I  had  to  grin  gloomily  over  his  error.  Mean 
time,  there  were  those  pups.  I  knew  something 
about  dogs,  and  I  could  see  at  a  glance  that  they 
were  perfectly  bred  English  fox-terriers,  thorough 
bred  all  over,  and  valuable.  Wherever  the  crook 
got  hold  of  'em,  I  pass.  I  at  first  concluded  that 
I  didn't  want  any  part  of  a  game  like  that,  and  was 
for  hunting  up  the  janitor  of  the  office-building 
and  handing  the  pups  over  to  him.  Then  I  had 
another  think. 

" c  Passing  'em  along  to  the  janitor  or  anybody 
else  for  nothing,'  I  thought,  c  would  be  liable  to 
excite  suspicion  that  I  had  swiped  'em,  and  get  me 
pinched.  And  I'm  not  going  to  turn  'em  loose  j  I 
wouldn't  turn  even  a  yaller  dog  loose  in  St.  Loo  to 
hustle  for  himself.  And  I  need  the  money.' 

"  I  knew  a  lot  of  horse  owners  and  trainers  over 
at  the  East  St.  Louis  track,  I  guess  there  were 


TALE  THE  TENTH  167 

plenty  of  Jem  who  wouldn't  have  stood  for  my 
peddling  patent  lamp  chimney  cleaners  if  they'd 
known  I  was  up  against  it  that  hard,  but  they 
didn't  know  it ;  I  was  never  on  the  touch  at  any 
stage  of  the  game,  snow  or  hail.  I  took  a  calash, 
dumped  my  three  pups  into  it,  and  told  the  driver 
to  take  me  across  to  the  paddock  of  the  East  St. 
Louis  track.  He  wanted  the  price  of  the  ride  in 
advance,  noticing  my  make-up  out  of  the  tail  of  his 
eye,  but  I  hurled  him  a  spiel  about  some  collections 
I  was  going  to  make  at  the  other  end  of  the  line, 
and  it  went.  He  took  me  over.  It  was  then 
along  toward  noon,  and  I  knew  that  I'd  find  a  lot 
of  horsemen  I  knew  at  the  stables.  There  was 
one  of  'em,  a  trainer  for  a  big  Memphis  string — I'd 
known  him  when  I  was  picking  'em  right — stand 
ing  at  the  main  stable  gate  when  my  calash  pulled 
up.  I  hopped  out  with  my  three  pups. 

" '  Just  give  the  driver  two  dollars  for  me  for 
ten  minutes,  will  you  ? '  I  said  to  the  trainer,  and 
he  dug  up  with  a  lot  of  friendly  talk  about  my  ap 
parently  being  on  the  porcine  and  all  that.  That 
made  me  quits  with  the  driver.  The  driver  hadn't 
pulled  off  before  I  saw  that  trainer  eyeing  my  pups. 
If  there  is  anything  a  old-time  horseman  loves  more 
than  a  thoroughbred  horse,  it's  a  thoroughbred  dog, 
and  the  horsemen's  addiction  to  bull  and  fox-ter- 


168  .      TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

rier  pups  was  something  I  was  dead  onto  when  I 
decided  to  cross  over  to  East  St.  Louis  with  my 
bunch  of  little  stump-tails.  I  didn't  say  anything, 
but  watched  one  of  the  pups  claw  all  over  the 
trainer,  who  I  knew  was  sizing  the  batch  up  with 
the  eye  of  a  man  who  knew  dog  and  dog-breed 
from  away  back. 

" '  Those  are  foxes  right/  he  said,  after  opening 
the  little  chaps'  mouths  and  picking  them  to  pieces 
with  his  shrewd  eyes.  '  Where'd  you  get  'em  ? ' 

" c  From  a  fellow  I  met,'  said  I,  not  caring  to 
talk  much  about  that  end  of  it. 

" '  Fll  give  you  fifty  for  this  one,'  he  said,  pick 
ing  up  the  little  gyp  that  had  been  clawing  him. 

" 4  You're  on,'  said  I,  coolly  as  I  could,  but  the 
figure  came  near  flattening  me.  The  amount  of 
my  rake-off  on  500  patent  lamp  chimney  cleaners ! 
I  knew  that  the  pups  were  good,  but  I  had  no  idea 
they  were  as  good  as  all  that. 

"  My  trainer  friend  pulled  out  a  bundle  about 
the  size  of  the  under  side  of  a  horse  collar  and  dug 
beneath  the  hundreds  to  get  at  a  fifty,  which  he 
handed  me. 

" '  You're  a  good  thing,'  said  he,  when  the  trans 
action  was  completed,  and  he  had  the  pup  under 
his  arm.  '  This  gyp's  worth  a  century  if  she's 
worth  two  bits/ 


TALE  THE  TENTH  169 

"  I  told  him  that  any  money  was  money  to  me 
just  then,  and  we  started  for  the  stables,  I  leading 
my  other  two  pups.  There  was  a  bunch  of  own 
ers,  nearly  all  of  whom  I  knew,  standing  outside 
one  of  the  stables  when  we  got  up,  and  every  man 
stopped  talking  just  to  size  up  those  pups. 

" l  I've  just  chucked  it  into  him/  said  the  Mem 
phis  trainer,  nodding  with  a  grin  to  me,  and  ad 
dressing  the  owners,  c  by  claiming  this  one  for 
fifty.  I'll  make  ten  times  that  out  of  her  with  a 
few  litters.' 

"Til  give  you  a  fifty  for  this  one/  said  an 
owner  from  the  coast  to  me. 

" c  Nothing  doing/  said  I. 

"  '  Seventy-five,'  said  he. 

"  '  Come  again,'  said  I. 

"  '  Post-time — a  hundred,'  said  he. 

" c  Take  him,'  I  said,  and  he  tripped  me  a  c  C ' 
from  his  roll. 

" '  Other  one's  mine,'  said  two  owners  at  once, 
— a  Chicago  and  a  Cincinnati  man, — and  they 
drew  straws  to  see  which  had  spoken  first  and 
which  would  have  the  privilege  of  paying  a  hun 
dred  for  my  last  pup.  The  Chicago  man  won, 
and  I  had  $250  in  my  clothes,  that  had  started  out 
in  the  morning  with  the  idea  of  making  enough 
out  of  my  patent  lamp  chimney  cleaners  to  buy 


170        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

two  dollars  worth  of  railroad  ride  to  any  old  point 
out  of  St.  Louis. 

u  Well,  the  old  fire  to  run  that  bundle  up  into  a 
million  by  playing  'em  right  there  that  afternoon 
got  into  me,  and  I  went  off  into  a  corner  and  re 
flected.  I  had  the  price  to  sail  into  New  York 
with  the  bells  on, — to  break  out  of  St.  Loo  once 
and  forever, — and  yet 

"  '  Say,  boy,'  I  heard  a  voice  behind  me  saying. 
I  looked  around  and  saw  the  Memphis  trainer  who 
had  bought  the  gyp.  'Seeing  that  I  did  you  on 
that  dog  deal,  and  that  you  appear  to  have  been 
some  out  of  luck  lately, — if  you  see  me  before  the 
last  race  on  the  card  this  afternoon,  maybe  I'll  be 
able  to  put  you  next  to  a  little  thing  that's  meant 
at  a  good  price.' 

"  He  shot  me  an  expressive  look  out  of  his 
shrewd  grey  eyes,  and  walked  away  chewing  a 
straw.  Then  he  turned  and  came  back. 

"  Don't  monkey  with  any  of  the  other  races  ; 
they're  all  open  ;  but  see  me  about  half  an  hour 
before  the  last  one.' 

"  Then  he  walked  away  for  good. 

"  I  went  back  to  St.  Louis,  got  some  duds  out 
of  hock,  took  a  Turkish  bath,  and  by  three  o'clock 
I  was  groomed  up,  with  a  Planters'  meal  beneath  my 
weskit,  a  quarter  cigar  in  my  face,  and  on  my  way 


TALE  THE  TENTH  171 

over  to  East  St.  Louis  in  a  cab.  This  was  on 
Friday  (my  lucky  day)  May  3,  1895.  I  got  to 
the  track  in  time  to  watch  the  third  and  fourth 
races,  there  were  only  five  on  the  card,  and  I 
watched  'em  with  cold  feet  and  nary  a  dollar 
down.  Then  I  slipped  out  to  the  paddock  and 
looked  around  for  my  friend,  the  Memphis  trainer. 
I  found  him  chewing  a  straw  and  looking  uncon 
cerned. 

" 4 1  think  there's  something  doing  on  this  Oh 
No  plug,'  said  he,  giving  me  the  right  kind  of  a 
look  out  of  his  eyes.  *  Finished  last  the  last  time 
out,  and  a  bum  looker,  but — well,  there  may  be 
something  doing  on  Oh  No.  Don't  take  any  of  it 
now.  The  price'll  go  up.' 

"  I  went  out  into  the  betting  ring  and  saw  that 
there  were  plenty  of  15  to  i  against  Oh  No. 
There  were  practically  three  favorites  in  the  race 
— Conductor  McSweeney  and  Hercules  at  5  to  2 
against,  and  Oakview  at  2  to  I,  the  latter  played 
down  from  3  to  I  by  the  time  I  got  into  the  ring. 
Two  minutes  after  I  got  into  the  ring  there  was  a 
lot  of  heavy  play  on  these  three,  and  Oh  No's 
price  went  a-soaring.  When  it  got  to  30  to  I  I 
took  $100  worth  of  it  in  four  books.  I  was  just 
in  time,  for  I  hadn't  any  sooner  got  my  $3,000  to 
$100  before  a  lot  of  educated  money  began  to  show 


1 72        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

around  the  ring,  and  Oh  No's  price  was  cut  first  to 
20,  and  then  closed  at  15  to  I. 

"  '  They  can't  lose  me  anyhow,  whether  Oh  No 
wins  or  not,'  I  reflected  as  I  went  into  the  stand, 
feeling  pretty  sassy  with  the  hundred  and  a  quarter 
that  I  still  had  left  and  knowing  that  I'd  get  back 
to  New  York  on  the  varnished  cars  any  old  way. 

"  I  thought  my  $100  was  up  in  the  air  for  a  cinch 
when  the  bunch  went  to  the  post.  Oh  No  looked 
to  me  like  a  Percheron  short  of  work.  Oh  No, 
with  a  boy  named  Slaughter  up,  got  off  a  rank  last, 
twenty  yards  behind  the  bunch,  with  Conductor 
McSweeney  'way  out  in  front,  and  Hercules  and 
Oakview,  the  other  two  played  horses,  lapped  on 
each  other  for  the  place.  Around  the  back  stretch 
the  Slaughter  boy  began  to  hunch  Oh  No  up  a 
little,  and,  turning  into  the  stretch,  the  plug  was 
fifth  in  the  field  of  eight,  only  five  lengths  behind 
the  leader.  Then  the  Slaughter  boy  let  the  mutt  down, 
there  was  a  ding-dong  drive  all  the  length  of  the 
stretch,  and  Oh  No's  nose  poked  in  front  right  on 
the  wire,  Conductor  McSweeney  a  neck  away,  and 
Hercules  ahead  of  Oakview  by  a  neck. 

"  When  I  had  collected  my  $3,100 — two  of  the 
bookies  who'd  laid  against  me  and  another  man 
on  the  Oh  No  proposition  weren't  on  the  block 
any  more  that  year — I  went  a-hunting  for  the 


TALE  THE  TENTH  173 

Memphis  trainer.  When  I  found  him  I  offered 
him  a  thousand  of  my  roll. 

" '  Salt  that,'  said  he.  c  I  don't  need  it.  I  yank 
down  $6,000  on  that  good  one  myself  from  four  or 
five  different  rooms  around  the  country/ 

"  There's  nothing  too  good  for  the  pair  of  fox- 
terriers  I've  got  on  my  place  now,"  concluded  Ex- 
Tank  No.  19. 


TALE  THE  ELEVENTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  25  ELUCIDATETH  YE 
THEORY  THAT  A  MAN  is  NEVER  BROKE  UN 
TIL  HE  is  BROKE 


TALE  THE  ELEVENTH 

WHEREIN  EX-TANK  NO.  25  ELUCIDATETH  YE 
THEORY  THAT  A  MAN  IS  NEVER  BROKE  UNTIL 
HE  IS  BROKE 

"  A  MAN'S  never  broke  until  he's  broke.  Also, 
all  sheep  herders  are  surely  crazy,"  said  Ex-Tank 
No.  25,  who  used  to  run  a  newspaper  at  Buffalo, 
Wyo.,  taking  two  long  draws  at  his  cigar  and  gaz 
ing  around  him  blandly. 

"  No,  siree,"  he  continued,  "  no  man's  ever 
broke  until  he's  flat  cleaned  out  and  busted  down 
to  the  last  piece  of  metal  with  the  United  States 
stamp  on  it.  And  although  there's  not  a  particle 
of  doubt  that  Joe  Irish  was,  and  probably  is  yet,  the 
craziest  sheep  herder  that  ever  threw  a  rock  at  a 
Snake  River  magpie,  that  don't  say  that  all  sheep 
herders  aren't  more  or  less  loony.  Now,  after  the 
chance  Joe  Irish  had  to  quit  a  big  winner  that  time, 
of  course,  like  the  crazy  sheep  herder  he  was,  he 
wasn't  satisfied,  but  he  wanted  to  put  all  the  layouts 
out  of  business,  and  of  course  he  went  broke 
down  to  his  last  two  bits.  And  if,  after  getting 
177 


1 78         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

down  to  the  last  two  bits,  he  hopped  in  again  and 
fooled  me  up  by  quitting  a  bigger  winner  than  he 
had  been  before,  why,  that  didn't  prove  that  he 
wasn't  plump  blind,  staggering  crazy,  not  by  a 
dickens  of  a  lot,  did  it  ? 

"  Joe,  you  know,"  went  on  Ex-Tank  No.  25, 
cc  couldn't  spend  his  pay  on  the  range,  and  so, 
when  he  came  into  Pocatello  (which  is  in  Idaho, 
as  I  suppose  I  must  say  for  the  benefit  of  the  Uit- 
landers  by  whom  I  am  surrounded),  he  had  $300 
waiting  for  him.  That  $300  bundle  was  an  awful 
affliction  to  Joe.  He  knew  that  he  couldn't  hope 
to  blow  it  all  in  on  sage-brush  whiskey  within  the 
space  of  ten  days,  which  was  to  be  the  period  of 
his  knock-off  after  nine  solid  months  on  the  range 
— but  he  made  the  attempt.  After  three  days  of  it 
he  still  had  $250  left.  Now,  whiskey  and  inborn 
insanity  naturally  make  toward  melancholia.  I 
was  up  against  it  at  Pocatello,  but  I  had  a  front. 
That  is,  I  had  a  collar  and  necktie.  That's  prob 
ably  why  Joe  Irish  picked  me  out  for  somebody  when 
he  saw  me  standing  near  the  entrance  to  the  Grand 
Palace  bar  and  asked  me.  We  had  two  or  three, 
and  then  Joe  unfolded  to  me  his  tale  of  woe. 
Only  six  and  a  half  days  remaining  of  his  vaca 
tion  from  the  sheep  range  and  about  $250  left. 

" '  An'  th'  best  I  kin  do,'  said  Joe,  '  is  t'  drink 


TALE  THE  ELEVENTH  179 

three  gallons  o'  booze  a  day,  an*  there  ain't  no 
one  around  here  to  stan'  me  up  an'  take  th'  bundle 
off  me,  or  work  th'  shells  on  me,  or  do  me  out  o' 
th'  wad.  Podner,'  wound  up  Joe,  plaintively, 
'  I'm  afeared  I'm  a-goin'  t'  hev  fully  twelve  dollars 
left  out  o'  this  bunch  when  th'  time  comes  fur  me 
t'  hit  up  th'  range  agin/ 

"  I  really  felt  sorry  for  Joe,  and  so  suggested 
Shag  Shaughnessy.  You  see,  when  I  struck  Po- 
catello  I  had  gone  against  Shag  Shaughnessy's  lay 
out  myself.  My  ticket  ran  out  at  Pocatello,  and 
I  only  had  eight  dollars  left.  I  wanted  to  go  to 
some  old  place,  either  backward  or  forward,  and 
eight  dollars  wasn't  much.  Shag  got  the  eight  dol 
lars.  That's  why  I  was  anchored  at  Pocatello. 

"  I  had  practically  to  lift  Joe  into  Shag's,  for 
the  mesquite  whiskey  had  told  on  him  already  on 
this  fourth  morning  of  his  vacation  from  the  range, 
although  he  hadn't  taken  more  than  eighty-seven 
drinks  of  it  since  he  had  got  out  of  bed  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  I  lifted  him  into  Shag's 
from  purely  philanthropic  motives.  I  didn't  pur 
pose  permitting  any  poor  sheep  herder  to  go  back 
to  his  range  with  money  if  I  could  help  it.  And 
Shag  looked  pleased  when  I  brought  Joe  in.  Shag 
was  dealing  himself,  and  the  four  men  in  front  of 
the  table  were  pikers. 


i8o        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"  4  Here's  a  poor  man,'  said  I  to  Shag, '  that's  got 
to  go  to  work  on  his  range  next  week,  and  he  don't 
see  his  way  clear  to  getting  rid  of  his  pile  between 
now  and  then  unless  he  has  assistance.  I  can't 
help  him  any,  because  myself,  I'm  only  waiting 
here  to  be  vagged.  Fix  him  out,  Shag,  and  earn 
his  eternal  gratitude/ 

"  '  Podner,'  said  Joe  to  me,  gratefully,  '  you're 
all  right.  Much  obliged.' 

"  Then  Joe  fell  into  one  of  the  side  seats  just 
when  Shag  was  starting  a  new  boxful,  and  by  the 
time  the  box  was  out  Joe  had  won  $1,850  of  Shag's 
coin  just  by  letting  his  money  stand  eight  times  on 
the  winners  because  he  had  no  more  sense,  between 
his  natural  craziness  and  the  whiskey.  Joe 
plunked  his  first  hunk  of  gilt,  twenty  dollars,  on  a 
queen.  It  came  out.  Then  he  slapped  the  win 
ning  and  the  original  twenty  dollars  over  on  an 
eight.  It  came  out.  And  so  on.  Eight  times 
he  did  this.  The  box  was  kind  to  him  every  time. 
After  the  eighth  come-out,  when,  besides  his  origi 
nal  twenty  dollars,  $1,850  worth  of  Shag's  chips 
were  piled  up  on  the  jack,  the  eighth  card,  Joe  sud 
denly  came  to,  like  a  man  who  had  been  hypno 
tized.  It  was  a  durned  uncomfortable  lucid 
interval  for  Shag. 

"  '  Podner,'  said  Joe,  addressing  me,  '  I'm  jest  a 


TALE  THE  ELEVENTH  181 

bit  dizzy.  We'll  git  out  in  the  air  an*  whirl  aroun* 
some.  Jest  cash  in  this  bunch  fur  me,  will  you  ?  ' 

"  Shag  looked  very  much  disappointed.  In  fact, 
I've  rarely  seen  such  a  disappointed-looking  man 
as  Shag  was  when  he  turned  that  $1,850  worth  of 
chips  into  gold  and  currency. 

"  *  Are  you  going  to  bring  him  back  ?  '  Shag 
asked  me. 

"  My  boy,'  said  I  to  Shag,  *  I'm  waiting  to  get 
vagged  here,  but  I  am  not  yet  a  runner  for  your  in 
stitution.  From  motives  of  the  purest  philanthro- 
phy  J  brought  our  sheep-herding  son  of  fortune 
here,  to  assuage  his  premature  grief  at  the  prospect 
of  being  compelled  to  return  to  his  range  with  ne 
gotiable  paper  and  metal.  The  task  seems  to  have 
been  too  difficult,  but  it  lets  me  out.  For  the 
future  movements  of  Mr.  Irish  ' — Joe  had  already 
gone  out  of  the  front  door — '  I  am  not  responsible.' 

"  Shaughnessy  cashed  the  chips,  and  I  walked 
out  with  the  $1,870,  which  included  Joe's  original 
venture  of  twenty  dollars,  and,  nailing  the  wander 
ing  Joe  about  a  block  up  the  street,  I  handed  it 
out  to  him.  You  may  be  surprised  that  he  trusted 
me,  a  stranger,  so  completely,  but  then  you  are 
measurably  familiar  with  my  winning  ways. 

"  Joe  didn't  seem  to  be  particularly  pleased  with 
the  amount  of  his  winnings. 


i82        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"  '  It's  one  thing  or  th'  other,  podner,  with  me/ 
said  he.  l  Either  I  go  back  to  th'  range  broke,  or 
I  goa-travellin',  an'  I  keep  on  a-travellin'  until  I'm 
broke.  It  looks  as  if  I  don't  get  broke  here.  So, 
how  about  a-travellin',  an'  right  now  ? ' 

"  I  related  unto  the  crazy  man  several  tales  of 
quite  sensible  persons  who  hadn't  ever  been  able  to 
let  well  enough  alone,  and  I  told  him  he'd  better 
hang  on  to  his  winnings  and  take  a  brace. 

u  c  Brace  nothin','  he  replied.  c  I'm  braced, 
huddlin'  a  ornery  bunch  o'  sheep  ten  months  in 
th'  year,  an*  I'm  just  unbracin'  now  an'  lettin'  out. 
When's  th'  nex'  train  west  comin'  along  ? ' 

"  The  next  Union  Pacific  train  for  the  west 
was  about  due  then,  and  I  told  him  so. 

" l  Well,  we'll  jest  take  it,'  said  Joe. 

"  It  was  humiliating,  but  I  was  compelled  to  tell 
him  my  circumstances.  I  tried  to  point  a  moral  in 
telling  him  about  my  circumstances,  but  he  wasn't 
up  to  moralizing  just  then.  He  dug  into  the 
pocket  wherein  he  had  deposited  his  winnings,  drew 
out  a  handful  of  gold  and  notes,  and  as  I  placed 
both  of  my  hands  behind  my  back  deprecatingly  he 
put  it  all  on  the  rim  of  my  hat. 

" '  I'm  stakin'  you,'  he  said.     '  Don't  be  a  coyote.' 

"  I  reached  for   the  money  then   and  counted  it 
It  amounted  to  $235. 


TALE  THE  ELEVENTH  183 

"  c  As  a  loan,  then,'  said  I,  '  all  right,'  for  I  re 
flected  that  if  we  were  to  go  travelling  a  stake 
would  be  necessary,  very  likely,  before  long. 

"  We  went  over  to  the  Grand  Palace  four-room 
hotel  anb  I  paid  up  and  got  my  grip.  Joe  had 
entered  Pocatello  unincumbered  with  luggage  and 
my  solicitude  over  mine  bored  him  a  good  deal. 
When  the  Union  Pacific  train  for  the  west  came 
along  we  took  palace-car  seats  for  the  length  of  the 
division.  I  thought  that  'ud  be  far  enough  to 
sober  Joe  up.  The  end  of  the  division  was 
Glenn's  Ferry,  Idaho.  When  we  got  there — and 
neither  of  us  suffered  for  nourishment  on  the  way 
— it  was  about  eleven  o'clock  at  night.  I  put  up 
across  from  the  station,  at  a  hotel  kept  by  a  loco 
motive  engineer's  wife.  I  intended  to  get  Joe  to 
bed  there,  lock  him  up,  and,  when  he  was  meas 
urably  sober  the  next  morning,  beat  sense  into  his 
head.  The  plan  didn't  go  through.  Joe  was  just 
sober  enough  before  I  got  him  to  bed  to  be  con 
trary.  He  had  seen  a  wide-open  game  on  his  way 
to  the  hotel.  He  wanted  some  of  it.  I  had  to  go 
along  with  him. 

"  Joe  didn't  have  a  nickel  in  the  world  when  we 
left  that  game  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I  had 
about  $220,  but  Joe  had  forgotten  all  about  that, 
and  I  didn't  intend  to  tell  him  anything  about  it 


1 84         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

until  some  of  the  corners  of  his  jag  had  been 
effaced.  We  turned  in  and  slept  like  a  pair  of 
tops.  When  we  woke  up  the  next  morning  Joe 
didn't  exhibit  the  customary  gloom  made  and  pro 
vided  for  the  broke  man  with  the  big  head.  He 
was  quite  chipper  and  cheerful. 

" '  I  guess  I  kin  stand  in  with  one  o'  th'  brakies 
t'  git  a  ride  back  t'  my  range/  said  he.  '  What's 
more,  I've  had  my  money's  worth.  We'll  stand 
'em  up  fur  breakfast  here,  hey  ? ' 

u  I  nodded.  As  we  were  entering  the  eating  room 
of  the  hotel  shack,  Joe  kicked  something  metal 
lic  with  the  toe  of  his  boot,  and  the  metallic  thing 
went  clinking  around  the  room  until  it  hit  the  wall. 
Joe  followed  it  and  picked  it  up.  It  was  a  quarter. 
There  was  a  far  deeper  expression  of  pleasure  on 
his  face  when  he  picked  up  that  quarter  than  there 
had  been  during  any  part  of  the  time  when  he  was 
slugging  Shag  Shaughnessy's  faro  layout. 

"  '  I  ain't  broke  yit,'  said  Joe,  stuffing  the  quar 
ter  into  his  pocket. 

"After  we  had  breakfast  we  went  out  fora  walk 
around.  I  pretended  to  have  found  a  stray  dollar 
in  my  vest  pocket,  and  I  asked  Joe  into  a  weather- 
boarded  saloon  for  a  drink.  In  the  back  room  of 
the  saloon  there  was  a  roulette  wheel  and  a  red  and 
black  table,  both  of  them  already  in  operation  fo? 


TALE  THE  ELEVENTH  185 

the  benefit  of  the  railroad  men  who  were  soon  to 
go  out  on  their  trains.  The  quarter  in  Joe's 
pocket  itched.  He  played  the  oo  on  the  wheel 
layout.  It  won.  Then  he  did  another  amateur 
ish  thing.  He  played  the  33.  It  won.  Joe  was 
crazy,  as  I  say,  and  therefore  a  bet  doubler  from 
away  back.  He  doubled  on  the  wheel,  and  losing 
only  nine  times  in  twenty-seven  plays,  and  just 
keeping  under  the  twenty  dollar  limit — the  game 
ranged  from  a  quarter  to  that  figure — he  had  $268 
when  I  plucked  him  by  the  sleeve.  He  was  sensi 
ble  enough  to  quit  the  wheel  at  my  whispered 
suggestion.  But  when  we  got  outside  : 

"'We'll  now  head  for  the  main  tent/  said  Joe. 
I  tried  to  convince  him  that  $268  was  a  pretty  fair 
wad  of  money  for  a  man  who  had  been  flat  broke, 
all  except  a  quarter,  half  an  hour  before,  and  I  put 
it  to  him,  too,  that  he  could  now  go  back  to  Poca- 
tello  and  finish  out  his  five  days'  leave  yet  re 
maining. 

" '  We'll  now  head  for  the  main  tent,'  repeated 
Joe,  and  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  accompany 
him  to  Glenn's  Ferry's  chief  faro  layout. 

"Joe  took  seven  drinks  of  whiskey  and  started 
play.  He  got  down  to  his  last  ten  dollar  gold  bit, 
and  I  was  just  about  to  dig  up  my  hold-out  pile 
and  begin  play  myself,  when  he  played  the  high 


i86        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

card  with  his  ten  dollars  and  won.  Fie  couldn't 
lose  from  that  moment.  At  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  when  the  east-bound  express  from  Port 
land  was  due,  Joe  was  $2,225  winner.  I  tugged 
at  him  and  invited  him  to  the  station  to  see  me  off. 

"  '  Where  you  goin'  ? '  he  asked  me. 

"  'East.     To  Omaha,'  I  told  him. 

u  He  cashed  in  and  handed  me  five  $100  bills. 

"'You  kin  return  that,  if  you're  squeamish 
about  it,  when  you  git  back  where  you  b'long.' 

"I  smiled  in  Joe's  teeth  and  produced  the  $219 
that  I  had  left. 

" '  I  am  already  your  beneficiary  to  this  extent,' 
I  said  to  him,  '  and  if  you  insist  on  it  I'll  hang  on 
to  this,  although  I  meant  to  return  it  to  you  when 
you  took  a  brace,  and  be  much  obliged  into  the 
bargain.' 

"  He  studied  me  for  a  moment. 

" '  Well,  podner,'  he  said,  finally,  '  if  a  tender 
foot  like  you  kin  come  out  t'  this  country  an'  hold 
such  a  level  head  on  his  shoulders  there  ain't  no 
reason  that  I  kin  see  why  I  shouldn't  profit  by  th' 
example,  so  t'  speak.  I'll  just  hold  out  on  myself 
and  carry  this  whole  bunch  with  me  back  t'  th' 
range.' 

"  He  took  the  east-bound  train  with  me,  and  got 
off  with  about  $2,100  in  his  pocket  when  we 


TALE  THE  ELEVENTH  187 

reached  the  station  nearest  his  range.  All  of  which 
is  why  I  wasn't  vagged  at  Pocatello.  All  of  which 
also  goes  to  show  that  a  man's  never  broke  until 
he's  broke." 

"  But  how  about  all  sheep  herders  being  crazy  ?  " 
inquired  Ex-Tank  No.  7,  the  parliamentarian  and 

kicker. 

"  Didn't  Joe  Irish  let  me,  a  broke  and  about-to- 
be-vagged  tenderfoot  from  the  East,  handle  his 
winnings  ?  "  said  Ex-Tank  No.  25. 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH 


CONTAINING  A  REPORT  OF  EX-TANK.  No.  14  IN 
THE  DISTRESSING  POSITION  OF  YE  STOWA 
WAY 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH 

CONTAINING     A     REPORT     OF     EX-TANK    NO.     14     IN 
THE  DISTRESSING  POSITION  OF  YE  STOWAWAY 

"  I  FIND  it  odd  to  reflect,"  said  Ex-Tank  No. 
14,  "  that  I  made  a  cruise  on  the  Olympia,  Ad 
miral  George  Dewey's  flagship,  before  Dewey  ever 
trod  her  decks ;  and  I  wasn't  in  the  navy,  either." 

No.  14  immediately  found  himself  the  object  of 
the  suspicious  gaze  of  the  whole  club.  No.  7,  the 
parliamentarian  and  kicker,  punctured  the  moment 
of  silence  that  followed. 

"Come  at  us  light,"  said  No.  7.  "You  were 
shovelling  coal  on  her  trial  trip.  Is  that  it  ?  " 

"  Nope,"  answered  Ex-Tank  No.  14.  "  I  had 
a  good  long  sail  on  board  the  Olympia  after  she 
went  into  commission.  Wasn't  connected  with 
the  service,  though,  as  I  said." 

Ex-Tank  No.  7  grew  visibly  angry,  but  the 
Chief  Ex-Tank  had  his  eye  on  him  and  he  only 
spluttered  :  "  You  of  course  availed  yourself,  then, 
of  an  opportunity  to  ride  on  the  Olympia  when  she 
was  a  collier  or  a  tank  ship  or  engaged  in  creek 
191 


192        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

ferrying,  eh  ?  Say,  d'ye  think  you  can  throw  it 
into  this  outfit  that  the  Olympia,  one  of  the  finest 
cruisers  in  the  world,  was  ever  a  passenger  boat  ? " 

There  was  plenty  of  sarcasm  in  the  inquiry,  but 
No.  14  preserved  his  calm  amiability. 

u  There's  no  question  about  the  Olympia's  be 
ing  a  beauty  and  a  crackajack,"  he  went  on  reflec 
tively.  "  Roomy,  too.  Plenty  of  room  aboard  of 
her  for  a  fellow  to  keep  out  of  sight.  I  was  the 
Olympia's  first  stowaway." 

"  Oh,  you  stowed  away  ?  "  inquired  No.  7  with 
a  dreary  smile  of  incredulity.  "  That  sounds  so 
dead  easy,  you  know — to  stow  away  on  an  Ameri 
can  man-o'-war.  Say,  did  you  ever  stow  away  on 
a  transpacific  airship  ?  " 

"You  see,  it's  a  pretty  long  and  monotonous 
walk  from  San  Diego  to  San  Francisco,  and  my 
lips  were  chapped,  anyhow,  so  that  I  didn't  want 
to  walk,"  went  on  Ex-Tank  No.  14.  "  I  was  run 
down  some,  too,  and  needed  a  lungful  or  two  of 
sea  air,  and  a  trip  on  a  new  cruiser  was  good 
enough  for  me,  especially  when  it  'ud  take  me 
back  to  where  I  wanted  to  go.  That's  how  I 
happened  to  stow  away  on  the  Olympia  in  the 
month  of  March,  1895,  on  her  return  trip  from  the 
first  baby  cruise  she  went  on  after  going  into  com 
mission." 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH  193 

"  Didn't  have  a  bit  of  difficulty  doing  it,  either, 
did  you  ?  "  inquired  No.  7  sarcastically.  "  All  you 
had  to  do  was  to  walk  over  the  side,  head  for  the 
Captain's  cabin  and  bunk  up  with  the  old  man, 
eh  ?  Say,  what  kind  o*  people  d'ye  think 
you're " 

"  Back  up,  Seven,"  commanded  the  Chief  Ex- 
Tank,  pounding  with  his  cane  gavel.  "  Make  way 
for  the  deep-water,  heavy-weather  man." 

"  I  surely  did  winter  hard  in  San  Francisco  that 
year,"  resumed  No.  14.  "  I  had  got  together  a 
staff  of  steam-beer  pugs — three  of  them — in  the 
fall,  expectin'  'em  to  win  me  out  enough  to  get 
back  to  New  York  with  bells  a-jingling,  anyhow. 
But  they  all  three  went  wrong.  One  of  'em 
stabbed  a  friend  of  his  and  got  three  years  in  San 
Quentin.  Another  went  off  on  a  toot  after  I  had 
shaped  him  up  for  a  ten-round  go  with  a  welter 
weight  and  landed  in  the  bug  ward  of  a  free  hos 
pital  with  the  jims.  The  last  of  the  bunch  got 
himself  poked  out  in  the  first  round  by  a  half 
Modoc  lightweight,  and  I  passed  him  up.  Didn't 
pull  down  a  dollar  from  one  of  them.  Then  I  got 
behind  the  curtain  out  at  the  track  and  found  out 
about  a  good  thing  that  was  in  preparation.  I  put 
a  Willie  boy  that  I  met  next  to  what  was  going  to 
happen,  and  it  went  through,  my  rakedown  being 


194        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

$800.  I  was  in  two  minds  about  jumping  back  to 
New  York  right  then,  but  I  concluded  to  have  one 
more  whack  at  the  ring  on  an  air-tight  good  thing 
that  I'd  heard  about.  I  put  the  whole  bundle, 
down  to  the  last  two-bit  piece,  on  it.  The  nag  got 
away  ten  lengths  behind  the  bunch  and  was  beaten 
a  nose  on  the  wire,  with  30  to  i  about  him.  PQ 
played  him  straight  only.  That  put  me  out  of 
business  for  fair. 

u  I  got  through  the  next  couple  o*  months  on 
my  wardrobe  and  my  face,  but  it  was  hard  plug 
ging,  San  Francisco  being  the  worst  ever  in  la 
dling  out  the  frappe  to  the  busted  also-rans.  Only 
had  one  suit,  the  trousers  unpressed,  and  nary  the 
price  to  get  my  collars  and  cuffs  out,  when  I  met 
up  with  the  merry-go-round  chap.  He  was  run 
ning  the  merry-go-round  on  a  lot  out  near  the 
Presidio,  and  making  good,  too.  San  Francisco 
people  will  take  a  hack  at  anything  that  gives  'em 
a  whirl  and  he  was  pulling  down  pretty  fair  money 
on  this  merry-go-round.  His  name  was  Joe  Cas~ 
dale  and  he  was  a  queer  duck,  with  all  kinds  of 
tattoo  marks  on  his  arms  and  chest  and  enough  in 
formation  about  the  South  Seas  to  make  a  book. 
He  never  coughed  up  anything  about  himself,  how 
ever.  He  took  me  in  with  him  to  help  him  stand 
watch  on  the  merry-go-round  for  two  dollars  a  day 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH  195 

and  a  roost  at  his  boarding-house.  I  stayed  along 
at  that  until  the  business  began  to  flatten  out,  and 
then  Casdale  asked  me  if  I  wanted  to  go  down  to 
San  Diego  with  him  and  the  merry-go-round  to 
take  in  the  March  flower  fiesta.  I  went. 

"  Now,  Pd  been  doing  a  dry  stunt  ever  since  I 
first  went  broke  in  San  Francisco,  which  was  nine 
months  before,  and  this  San  Diego  flower  fiesta 
just  naturally  made  me  thirsty.  A  California 
flower  fiesta  is  one  of  these  here  delightful  Latin- 
European  institutions  that  permit,  and  in  fact  re 
quire,  all  hands  to  corn  up  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  them.  There's  no  side  stepping  on 
the  proposition  that  those  people  out  there  know 
how  to  enjoy  themselves,  and  the  way  they  cut 
loose  for  the  annual  flower  fiesta  is  a  warning  to 
locusts.  This  San  Diego  blow-out  lasted  just  one 
week,  and  there  was  simply  nothing  doing  except 
joy  from  the  start  to  the  finish  of  it.  It  was,  in 
fact,  about  the  most  colossal  drunk  I'd  ever  blown 
into.  It  didn't  take  me  off  my  feet  the  first  day  or 
two,  but  after  that  I  began  nibbling  at  the  red 
Chianti  of  California  just  to  get  into  the  game.  I 
found  it  pretty  hard  to  keep  at  my  stunt  on  the 
merry-go-round,  which  was  coining  money,  after  I 
got  started  on  the  California  cochineal,  and  on  the 
fourth  afternoon  I  had  just  walked  off  for  an  hour  or 


196        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

so  and  let  Casdale  run  the  fit-out  himself.  When 
I  got  back,  pretty  well  hooted  up,  along  toward 
five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  I  found  the  merry-go- 
round  with  a  big  sign  on  it,  '  Closed  down,'  and  a 
cop  standing  near  told  me  that  my  boss  was  in  jail. 
I  hustled  up  to  the  jail  to  see  him,  and  found  him 
smoking  a  pipe  as  cool  as  a  cucumber. 

" l  It's  all  off,'  he  told  me.  c  They've  nabbed 
me  for  a  job  of  ship-swiping  five  years  ago,  they've 
got  me  dead  to  rights,  and  I'll  do  my  little  three  or 
five  trick  over  the  road  for  it  for  a  certainty.  I 
don't  know  whether  they'll  attach  the  merry-go- 
round  or  not,  but  if  they  don't  you  can  have  it  and 
run  it  yourself.  You  needn't  bother  about  any 
lawyer.  They've  got  me  too  pat  for  that.' 

"  Well,  there  was  a  queer  story  in  connection 
with  that.  Five  years  before  that  Casdale,  with  a 
couple  of  other  chance-taking  sailors — the  masters' 
certificates  of  all  three  of  them  had  been  taken 
away  from  them  years  before  for  crooked  work — 
had  deliberately  sailed  a  schooner  belonging  to  a 
shipping  company  out  of  the  harbor  of  Santa  Bar 
bara  and  put  out  to  sea,  bound  for  that  queer  island, 
Tiburon.  They  had  heard  pipe  stories  about  buc 
caneers'  treasure  being  buried  there,  and  they  went 
after  it.  The  natives  didn't  let  them  get  within  a 
hundred  yards  of  the  beach,  and  they  had  set  sail 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH  197 

for  Acapulco  in  their  swiped  schooner.  „  The  boat 
got  into  a  gale  and  was  waterlogged  and  the  three 
chaps  were  picked  up  by  the  Pacific  mail  steamer 
Colima,  that  v/ent  down  a  few  years  ago  with  all 
hands.  Casdale  had  been  spotted  in  San  Diego  at 
his  merry-go-round  by  one  of  the  agents  of  the 
Santa  Barbara  shipping  company  during  my  absence 
that  afternoon,  and  here  they  had  him  behind  the 
bars.  He  told  me  all  this  briefly  over  his  pipe, 
made  me  out  a  bill  of  sale  for  the  merry-go-round, 
shook  hands  and  told  me  that  he  wanted  to  take  a 
snooze,  and  that's  the  last  I  ever  saw  of  him.  I 
heard  afterward  that  he  got  what  he  expected — five 
years. 

"  I  took  a  brace  and  went  back  and  opened  up 
the  merry-go-round  again.  Took  in  nearly  forty 
dollars  that  night  and  was  booming  along  toward 
the  hundred  mark  the  next  day  when  a  deputy  sheriff 
came  along  and  attached  the  whole  works.  Now,  at 
the  moment  when  this  deputy  sheriff  duck  served  this 
attachment  on  me  I  was  riding  about  thirty  of  the 
sailors  of  the  Olympia,  which  had  gone  into  com 
mission  up  at  the  Mare  Island  Navy  Yard  the 
month  before  and  had  been  sent  on  her  first  run 
down  to  the  San  Diego  flower  fiesta  to  sort  o' 
loosen  up  the  machinery  and  get  her  oiled  up.  I'd 
been  running  in  with  the  bluejackets  every  day 


198        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

since  the  beginning  of  the  blowout  and  they  knew 
me.  Got  'mixed  up  with  several  bunches  of  'em, 
when  I  started  in  on  the  Chianti  of  the  soil,  in 
fact.  When  -this  deputy  sheriff  flashed  his  paper 
on  me,  therefore,  and  I  told  my  bunch  of  tars  that 
it  was  all  off,  that  the  outfit  had  been  grabbed 
from  me,  they  asked  me  whether  I  wanted  to  stand 
for  it  or  not.  They  were  all  loaded  for  snowbirds 
and  they  didn't  see  any  particular  reason  why  their 
merry-go-round  rides  should  be  choked  off  in 
that  sudden  way.  If  I'd  given  them  the  tip  there'd 
have  been  minced  deputy  sheriff  on  the  bill  of  fare 
in  less  than  two  minutes,  but  I  was  just  about 
enough  on  top  of  the  old  stuff  to  know  that  if  the 
bluejackets  took  it  into  their  heads  to  rough-house 
it  with  the  representative  of  the  law  they'd  get 
themselves  into  pretty  serious  trouble,  and  so  I 
called  'em  off. 

"  '  I'm  too  strong  to  run  the  thing  now,  anyhow,' 
I  told  'em,  '  and  I  want  to  do  some  riding  on 
merry-go-rounds  myself.' 

"  The  talk  I  put  up  seemed  to  make  a  hit  with 
them,  and  away  we  went  to  help  make  the  fiesta 
festive.  I  had  enough  on  me  then  to  take  me 
back  to  New  York,  but  I  passed  up  the  opportunity 
again. 

" '  New  York,'  said  I  to  myself,  '  is  a  pretty  raw 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH  199 

burg  in  the  month  of  March  and  the  Chianti  that 
costs  sixteen  cents  a  gallon  here  is  about  $1.98,  or 
something  like  that,  over  there/ 

"  I  don't  remember  much  about  the  finish  of  that 
night,  or  the  next,  or  any  of  'em  for  the  rest  of  the 
week.  I  had  a  bodyguard  of  bluejackets,  I  know, 
all  the  time,  and  while  my  hundred  held  out  their 
shore  money  was  counterfeit.  I  must  have  been 
thicker  than  thieves  with  'em,  though,  for  when  I 
woke  up  on  the  Sunday  morning  following  the 
final  Saturday  night  finish  of  the  fiesta  a  couple  of 
them,  with  petty  officers'  badges  on  their  arms, 
were  prodding  me  in  the  ribs. 

"'Say,'  said  one  of  them,  a  big  oiler  who  had 
been  all  over  the  world,  in  the  navy,  as  I  afterward 
found  out,  c  v/e've  got  to  go  aboard  now  to  stand 
Sunday  inspection.  Liberty's  up.  You  were  giv 
ing  us  a  hop-talk  last  night  about  walking  back  to 
'Frisco.  Is  it  up  to  you  to  do  that  ? ' 

"  I  got  up,  looked  through  my  clothes,  found  a 
single  two-bit  piece,  held  it  up,  and,  said  I :  'It 
looks  like  it,  don't  it  ?  ' 

"'Well,  I'll  tell  you,'  said  this  kindly  giant. 
'  You've  been  on  the  level  with  us  fellows,  and  we 
want  to  handle  you  right.  It's  a  long  way  by  the 
footpath  up  to  San  Francisco.  D'ye  want  to  take 
a  chance  and  ride  up  on  the  ship  ? ' 


200        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"'What  ship?'  said  I. 

"'Our  ship,  the  Olympia,'  said  he.  'There's 
been  about  forty  or  fifty  of  the  junipers  that 
shipped  in  Mare  Island  as  landsmen  and  coal 
heavers  jumped  her  down  here — couldn't  stand  the 
gaff.  None  of  them  was  aboard  long  enough  to 
have  his  mug  known  to  the  officers.  I've  got  the 
rig  of  one  of  the  coal  heavers  that  quit  along  with 
me.  Jump  into  it,  if  you  want  to  go  up — the  ship 
sails  to-morrow  morning — and  the  black  gang  down 
below  '11  see,  after  you  get  aboard,  that  you  don't 
have  to  stand  a  coal-heaving  watch  for  your 
passage,  that  you  get  your  mess  pan,  and  that  the 
Jimmy  Legs  and  none  of  the  officers  '11  get  next. 
That's  better  than  walking,  isn't  it  ? ' 

"  Was  it  ?  I  was  in  that  coal-heaver's  blue 
jacket  rig,  big  head  and  all,  in  less  than  three 
minutes,  and  my  name  was  switched  to  John 
Crimmins,  the  name  of  the  deserter  the  oiler  told 
me  I  looked  most  like.  I  rolled  down  to  the  steam 
cutter  with  three  of  my  bluejacket  pals  of  the 
week,  and  when  we  got  to  the  landing  we  found 
about  twenty  more  of  them,  in  various  stages  of 
that  next  morning  feeling,  waiting  to  go  off  to 
the  ship.  We  all  climbed  into  the  cutter,  and 
on  the  way  over  the  oiler  whispered  me  some 
directions. 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH  201 

UCA11  you've  got  to  do  when  you  go  aboard,' 
said  he,  c  is  to  line  up  with  the  rest  of  the  gang, 
and  when  John  Crimmins's  name  is  sung  out  by 
the  officer  of  the  deck,  you  just  give  him  a  bit  of  a 
salute  with  your  right,  say,  "  Here,  sir,"  and  he'll 
look  you  over  to  see  whether  you're  to  be  marked 
in  the  book  u  drunk  and  dirty "  or  "  clean  and 
sober."  The  officer  of  the  deck  to-day  is  a  kid 
junior  lieutenant  that  don't  know  one  man's  mug 
from  another's,  and  when  you  sing  out  your  name 
walk  forward  to  the  break  o'  the  fo'c'sle  an'  I'll  be 
right  behind  you.  Another  thing :  There's  not 
much  chance  of  the  thing  not  going  through,  but 
if  you're  nailed  they  can't  do  any  more  than  put 
you  on  the  beach.  If  you're  nailed  and  questioned, 
just  tell  'em  that  you  came  aboard  on  your  own 
hook,  and  don't  cough  up  who  put  you  next  to  this 
scheme.' 

"It  went  through  like  clockwork.  I  shinned 
up  the  gangway  ladder  with  as  ready-money  a 
swing  as  if  I  had  been  born  in  the  foretop  of  a 
wind  jammer,  for  this  free  ride  up  to  San  Francisco 
looked  pretty  neat  to  me,  and  I  was  play-acting  on 
my  mettle.  The  young  fellow  in  officer's  clothes 
who  called  out  the  names  of  the  returning  liberty 
party  just  gave  each  of  us  a  glance.  A  couple  of 
the  tars  who  were  jagged  to  the  point  of  spiflication 


202        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

he  handed  over  to  the  Master-at-Arrns,  who  took 
me  in,  by  the  way,  when  he  first  clapped  his  lamps 
on  me  as  if  he  thought  there  was  a  cog  gone  wrong 
somewhere  in  his  head,  but  let  it  go  at  that.  When 
I  had  answered  to  John  Crimmins's  name  I  didn't 
waste  any  time  joining  the  bunch  up  forward.  The 
oiler  was  right  behind  me. 

" '  Duck/  said  he,  without  looking  at  me,  c  I 
think  the  Jimmy  Legs  is  next.'  That  is  to  say,  he 
thought  the  Master-at-Arms  had  piped  me  off. 
Well,  if  the  Master-at-Arms  did  have  any  suspicion 
beneath  his  cap,  he  was  all  right,  anyhow.  He 
gave  me  the  queer  look  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye  a 
number  of  times  after  that,  but  if  he  had  the  thing 
right  he  never  opened  up.  I  went  down  to  the 
engine  room  with  my  friend  the  oiler,  and  he  spent 
half  an  hour  or  so  in  telling  me  what  I  was  to  do. 
I  stood  quarters  and  inspection  that  Sunday  morn 
ing  on  the  main  deck  under  the  name  of  John 
Crimmins,  a  lot  of  the  tars  of  the  black  gang,  who 
had  been  put  on  quietly  by  the  oiler,  huddling  me 
in  the  rear  lines  so  as  to  keep  the  engineers'  eyes 
of?  me — not,  the  oiler  said,  that  the  engineers  were 
liable  to  pipe  me  off,  the  crew  was  so  new  to  them, 
but  for  safety. 

"  Well,  after  that  Sunday  morning  it  was  easy. 
I  got  Crimmins's  seat  at  the  coal  heavers'  mess.  I 


TALE  THE  TWELFTH  203 

was  told  off  for  a  watch  when  the  ship  got  under 
way  for  San  Francisco  the  next  morning,  but  my 
friends  in  the  black  gang  wouldn't  stand  for  my 
going  into  the  bunkers. 

" '  It'll  blister  those  soft  mitts  of  yours,'  they 
said,  and  I  didn't  pass  any  coal.  The  watch  list 
was  monkeyed  with  to  get  me  out  of  it,  and  I 
mixed  up  with  the  gang  forward  while  I  was  sup 
posed  to  be  stripped  to  the  waist  down  below  in  a 
temperature  of  about  135°  shovelling  steam  coal. 
I  didn't  want  this  end  of  it — it  looked  like  flunking 
and  playing  the  baby  act  to  me — but  the  oiler  told 
me  that  I'd  croak  in  the  bunkers  and  that  'ud  give 
the  whole  snap  away.  I  can't  pass  up  any  finer 
tribute  to  the  decency  of  the  fellows  that  are  piking 
around  the  world  in  the  American  bluejacket  uni 
form  than  to  say  this  :  I  found  out  afterward  that 
there  wasn't  a  single  man  forward  of  the  Olympiads 
crew  that  didn't  know  within  twenty-four  hours 
after  I  was  aboard  the  Olympia  that  I  was  smug 
gled,  and  nary  a  one  o'  them  so  much  as  whispered 
their  knowledge  of  it  to  me,  much  less  chawed 
about  it  among  themselves.  The  phrase  '  there's 
a  knocker  in  every  push,'  don't  fit  our  man-o'-war's 
men. 

"  I  had  a  nice  sail,  and  when  the  ship  pulled  up 
at  Mare  Island  I  got  shore  liberty,  went  over  to 


204        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Vallejo  and  forgot  to  come  back.  Therefore  John 
Crimmins  wasn't  declared  a  deserter  in  San  Diego, 
but  in  Vallejo,  and  that's  one  thing  that  John 
Crimmins  doesn't  know. 

"  Four  months  later  I  came  across  the  mountains 
to  New  York  in  a  four-and-a-half-day  palace  car, 
but  that's  another  end  of  it. 

"  I  never  figured  that  the  Olympia  would  fall  in 
with  such  swell  company  as  she  did  when  George 
Dewey  took  his  post  on  her  bridge :  but  I  had  a 
ride  on  her  before  George  did." 


TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH 


WHICH  SPEAKETH  OF  How  EX-TANK:  (Hoo- 
DOO)  No.  13  WICKEDLY  REPRESENTED  HIM 
SELF  AS  YE  THEOLOGICAL  STUDENT 


TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH 

WHICH  SPEAKETH  OF  HOW  EX-TANK.  (HOODOO) 
NO.  13  WICKEDLY  REPRESENTED  HIMSELF  AS  YE 
THEOLOGICAL  STUDENT 

EX-TANK.  (Hoodoo)  No.  13  of  the  Harlem  Club 
of  Former  Alcoholic  Degenerates  went  down  to 
Washington  to  see  Congress  in  the  act  of  legislating. 

u  It  made  me  lonesome,"  said  he  in  talking 
about  it  after  the  regular  order  at  the  club  had  been 
concluded  on  his  return.  "  Not  that  I  hankered  to 
be  down  on  the  floor  in  the  middle  of  the  bunch. 
It  wasn't  that.  But  it  made  me  think  of  the  term 
I  put  in  when  I  was  twenty-three  in  the  lower 
house  of  Neb " 

"  No  boy  oratory  goes  in  this  outfit.  I  want 
Hoodoo  Thirteen  to  understand  that,"  said  Ex- 
Tank  No.  7,  the  parliamentarian  and  kicker, 
rising  suddenly.  "  No  narration  which  shall 
have  for  its  purpose  an  attempt  to  stampede 
this  organization  in  favor  of  any  or  all  of  the  in 
habitants  of  the  State  of  Neb " 

"Number  Seven  will  sit  down  and  stay  sat 
207 


208        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

down,"  commanded  the  Chief  Ex-Tank,  using  the 
crook  of  his  cane  for  a  gavel.  "This  outfit  is  in 
capable  of  being  stampeded.  Each  and  every 
member  of  this  organization  has  been  so  often 
stampeded  himself  to  a  proper  finish  that — er — 
Hoodoo  Thirteen  may  resume.'* 

"  Well,  I  wasn't  going  to  make  any  stab  at 
throwing  political  raw  meat  into  this  cage  of 
ours,"  said  No.  13.  "Politics  don't  bother 
me  any  more.  Politics  don't  force  me  to  take 
bromides  and  other  dope  to  get  sleep  any  more. 
What  politics  did  to  me  that  time  when,  at 
twenty-three,  I  was  a  member  of  the  lower  house 
of  Neb — well,  what  politics  did  to  me  was  a  heap. 
Say,  just  one  month  after  my  stretch  as  a  legislator 
was  out  I  found  myself  standing  up  to  the  waist  in 
the  water  of  a  Colorado  mine,  fooling  with  a  drill 
for  wages.  That's  what  politics,  aided  and  abetted 
by  the  stuff  that  flows  and  finally  throws  and  that 
made  the  organization  of  this  club  possible — that's 
what  politics,  etc.,  did  for  me. 

"  But  it  gave  me  some  nerve.  Before  I  did 
that  legislative  stunt  I  could  no  more  turn  a  win- 
out  trick  than  a  duck  who's  got  a  governor  to  tele 
graph  to  for  funds  when  he  has  slung  down  his  last 
card.  After  that,  though — well,  I  had  a  rope 
around  my  neck  once  and  it  didn't  chuck  any  par- 


TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH         209 

ticular  scare  into  me.  Probably  I  considered  that 
a  man  might  as  well  be  hanged  as  live  around  the 
Red  River  district  of  Arkansas  any  longer. 

"  That  was  a  queer  game.  After  the  Colorado 
mining  job  had  held  me  waist  deep  in  the  water  for 
a  couple  o'  months,  I  keeled  over  with  the  tizzy- 
wizzy  or  something,  went  off  my  head  for  two  or 
three  weeks,  and  the  boys  were  fixing  to  send  me 
back  home  v/ith  a  proper  escort  and  me  in  the  bag 
gage  car  in  a  box.  I  fooled  'em  on  that,  but  the 
mining  people  wouldn't  give  me  my  job  back  when 
I  was  able  to  get  on  my  feet — said  they  didn't 
think  I  could  stand  the  gaff,  and  they  didn't  want 
to  be  held  liable  for  damages  if  I  croaked  from  the 
gas  in  the  pit.  So  I  jabbed  a  penknife  into  a  map 
after  closing  my  eyes,  and  the  point  of  the  blade 
stuck  in  the  Red  River  country  of  Arkansas.  I 
set  sail  for  there,  took  the  wildest  end  of  it  I  could 
find  and  for  a  couple  of  weeks  poked  around  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  with  a  shotgun  over  my  arm, 
making  myself  believe  that  I  was  hunting.  Well, 
just  to  bite  this  end  of  it  off  short,  the  moonshiners 
down  there  got  on  to  my  trail  and  they  figured  me 
out  as  a  revenue  sharp.  They  held  me  up  one  day 
and  run  me  to  their  still. 

"'You've  been  hunting  for  something  or  other 
around  here  for  a  couple  o'  weeks,'  they  said  to  me 


210         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

1  and  here  it  is,'  and  they  showed  me  the  still.  I 
told  'em  they  were  mixed.  Now  it  happened  that 
at  the  time  they  gathered  me  in  I  didn't  have  a 
charge  in  either  barrel  of  my  shotgun  ;  was  afraid 
of  the  triggers  catching  in  the  underbrush.  This 
made  them  suspicious. 

"  l  Hunting  squirrels/  they  said  incredulously, 
4  and  nary  a  charge  in  your  iron  ?  What  are  you 
giving  us  ?  ' 

tc  Well,  I  wasn't  exactly  feeling  good  or  trig 
yet  after  that  sickness,  and  so  I  told  them  to  go  to 
the  devil  if  they  didn't  believe  me ;  that  I  didn't 
have  any  time  or  inclination  to  chew  the  rag  about 
it.  So  they  put  the  rope  around  my  neck,  lifted 
me  up  to  the  top  of  a  barrel  and  I  spent  the  time 
in  thinking  out  new  ones  to  call  them.  That's 
what  made  the  hit  with  them. 

u '  Revenue  sharps  don't  talk  that  a-way,'  the 
boss  of  the  gang  said  just  as  I  was  about  to  have 
the  barrel  kicked  from  beneath  me.  c  I  reckon 
he  un's  all  right/  And  so  I  was  turned  loose  and 
told  that  Little  Rock  was  healthier  than  any  place 
along  the  banks  of  the  Red  River.  I  took  the 
hint  and  that's  how  I  happened  to  hit  Little  Rock. 

"  Now,  when  I  got  into  Little  Rock  one  Octo 
ber  morning  for  the  first  time,  the  sun  was  shining, 
the  town  looked  about  as  dinky  as  usual  and  I  had 


TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH         211 

along  with  me  eighty-five  dollars  and  the  whole 
wardrobe  with  which  I  had  dazzled  'em  when  I 
was  serving  my  term  in  the  Legislature  in  the  State 
of  Neb — when  I  was  in  politics.  This  all  seemed 
so  unnatural  that  I  took  a  few  then  and  there  be 
fore  breakfast  to  sort  o'  bind  the  bargain.  Then  I 
forgot  to  eat  any  breakfast.  I  forgot  to  eat  any 
breakfast  for  about  three  weeks  after  that.  Now, 
any  man  who  can  stand  Little  Rock  red  stuff  with 
out  eating  anything  for  two  days,  much  less  two 
weeks,  has  got  to  have  had  a  whole  big  future  be 
hind  him  at  that  kind  of  work,  or  it'll  stop  him  for 
good  and  all.  I  was  almost  stopped  at  the  wind- 
up  of  the  three  weeks.  Also  I  was  almost  broke. 
I  woke  up  one  morning  in  my  room  at  the  Mer 
chants'  Exchange  Hotel,  and  there  was  a  pretty 
good  looker  of  a  duck  sitting  in  the  chair  by  the 
window  reading  the  morning  paper  and  smoking  a 
pipe.  I  only  remembered  him  vaguely,  and  so  I 
asked  him  wherefore  and  how.  Well,  it  seems 
that  he  had  been  my  bosom  pal  and  chum  during 
those  three  weeks — that  he  had  run  into  me  almost 
from  the  go-off  and  that  we  had  just  burnt  up  Little 
Rock  on  that  eighty-five  dollars  of  mine  and  a 
bunch  of  forty  dollars  that  he  had  become  possessed 
of  somehow  or  another  himself.  He,  however, 
had  snapped  himself  right  about  a  week  before,  and 


212        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

was,  when  I  thus  made  his  acquaintance  rationally, 
feeling  like  a  four-time  winner,  while  I  saw  charts 
of  the  ichthyosaurian  period  all  over  the  room. 
He  sat  around  my  room  for  a  couple  o'  days,  get 
ting  me  right,  and  then  we  had  a  talk. 

"  '  You're  broke,  ain't  you  ? '  said  he  to  me. 

"'Yep,'  said  I. 

u  c  So'm  I,'  said  he.  '  So  we'll  have  to  hitch  up, 
and  do  something.  That  right  ? ' 

"  I  told  him  that  was  about  right,  and  I  soon  dis 
covered  that  he  had  a  whole  lot  of  a  head  on  him. 
He'd  been  every  old  thing — feather  renovator,  law 
yer,  book  agent,  lobbyist.  He  had  an  idea. 

"'Say,'  he  said  to  me,  'while  I've  been  sitting 
here  listening  to  you  talk  bug  in  your  sleep,  it's 
struck  me  that  you're  all  right  as  a  reader.  You 
didn't  hurl  any  "  Curfew  Shall  Not  Ring  To-night " 
or  stuff  like  that  at  me,  but  you  worked  ofF  a  lot 
of  Mark  Twain  and  Jim  Whit  Riley  and  Eugene 
Field  spiels  when  you  didn't  know  it,,  and  I  guess 
you  must  have  had  some  amateur  practice  some 
where  at  that  game.  How  about  it  ? ' 

"  I  told  him  he  was  about  right,  and  then  he 
sprung  his  graft. 

"  '  I  guess  I'll  just  start  out  ahead  of  you  and  bill 
a  few  towns  announcing  you  as  a  reader.  I'll  work 
up  the  church  end  of  it.  You  can  give  your  read- 


TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH         213 

ings  in  the  churches,  see,  and  I'll  spread  it  around 
that  you're  a  young,  brilliant  and  promising  theo 
logical  student,  endeavoring  to  raise  funds  by  read 
ing  sufficient  to  enable  you  to  complete  your  studies. 
We  won't  make  any  charge  for  admission,  but  when 
we've  got  'em  planted  in  the  churches  we'll  pass 
around  the  plate  and  I  guess  we'll  get  enough  out 
of  it  that  way  for  a  meal  ticket  or  so.  How 
about  it  ? ' 

"  I  told  him  to  go  ahead  and  he  did.  He  had  a 
pretty  good  front,  and  altogether  he  was  about  as 
hustling  a  pal  to  tandem  up  with  as  ever  I  met.  I 
don't  know  how  he  ever  got  the  price  of  a  ticket 
down  to  Arkadelphia,  but  he  got  there  and  hired  a 
church  for  my  first  reading.  Then  he  spread  him 
self  around  among  the  population  and  threw  it  into 
'em  what  a  great  man  was  going  to  appear c  in  their 
midst '  to  read  things  to  them.  I  got  a  telegram 
from  him  two  days  after  he  struck  Arkadelphia.  It 
read  : 

"  '  Put  one  of  those  overcoats  in  for  five  dollars 
and  come  down  here  at  once.' 

"I  followed  copy  and  landed  in  Arkadelphia  that 
same  night,  wearing  my  legislative  black  broad 
cloth  suit,  a  silk  lid  ruffled  up  to  make  it  look  like 
the  toppers  of  theological  students  ought  to  look 
when  they're  struggling  for  a  chance  to  pursue 


214        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

their  studies,  and  a  pair  of  plain  glass  eyeglasses 
that  I  got  for  thirty-five  cents  to  throw  studious- 
ness  into  my  make-up. 

cc '  You're  good  all  right,  outside,'  said  my  pal, 
when  he  met  me  at  the  Arkadelphia  station,  sizing 
me  up,  '  but  you  won't  do.  You're  up  against  it. 
I  made  a  mistake  this  morning,  and  it's  queered 
the  dice,  I'm  afraid.  Called  on  the  old  Presby 
terian  minister  here — one  of  'em,  for  I  believe 
there  are  two — and  tried  to  enlist  him  in  the  game 
and  succeeded.  That's  the  dickens  of  it.  I  suc 
ceeded.  He  wants  to  see  you  as  soon  as  you  get 
in.  Now,  he's  sharper  than  a  steel  trap,  and  he's 
got  an  eye  like  an  eagle.  He's  one  of  the  shrewd 
est  old  gentlemen  I  ever  met  and  he's  bound  to  get 
next.  He'll  want  to  talk  theology  with  you,  and 
he'll  run  you  into  a  corner  before  you've  been  along 
side  of  him  two  minutes.  And  the  minute  he  sees 
there's  anything  phony  about  you,  the  reading  busi 
ness,  lacking  toeweights,  goes  right  up  in  the  air. 
I'm  afraid  it's  all  up,  chum.  He'll  expect  you  to 
talk  Greek  and  Latin,  and  when  you  flunk  on  that 
he'll  wonder ' 

"'You  go  on  talking  just  to  hear  your  head 
roar,  don't  you,  pal  ? '  I  said  to  him.  c  How  do 
you  know  I'll  flunk  ?  What'll  you  bet  I'll  flunk  ? 
You  say  he's  an  old  one  ?  Well,  d'ye  suppose  he 


TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH         215 

remembers  a  hundred  lines  of  his  Iliad  ?  I  do,  and 
I'll  saw  'em  off  on  him  if  he  gives  me  half  a  show. 
D'ye  think  he  recalls  one  canto  of  his  Virgil  ? 
Well,  it  has  only  been  three  years  or  so  since  I 
broke  away  from  all  that  and  I  can  heave  Virgil  at 
him  till  he  can't  rest.  And  I'll  fight  shy  of 
theology.  Just  take  me  to  him,  and  if  I  don't  win 
out  I'll  let  you  go  through  my  trunk  and  take  what 
you  want.' 

"  My  pal  took  me  to  the  old  minister  rather 
reluctantly,  and  then  left  me,  ostensibly  to  attend 
to  some  business,  but  really  because  he  didn't  want 
to  be  on  hand  to  see  me  go  all  to  pieces  in  the  old 
gentleman's  hands. 

"  Did  the  old  minister  tear  me  apart  ?  Not 
much  did  he  !  Say,  I'm  not  so  chesty  now  as  I 
used  to  be,  and  whatever  big  head  I  ever  had  has 
been  swatted  out  of  me,  but  I  certainly  did  just 
dazzle  that  old  clergyman.  I  laid  myself  out.  I 
knew  I  was  talking  for  my  life,  for  if  that  reading 
proposition  didn't  go  through  I  didn't  see  anything 
ahead  except  selling  patent  egg  beaters.  I  made  it 
stick.  We  talked  far  into  the  night,  and  when  I 
left  the  old  man  he  was  giving  me  the  gentle  pats 
on  the  shoulder.  He  was  really  one  of  the  strongest 
men  I  ever  met — a  bushy  eyebrowed  old  man  of 
the  cloth,  with  a  pair  of  keen  eyes  and  a  faculty 


216         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

for  seeing  into  things.  Yet,  as  I  say,  when  I  bade 
him  good-bye  that  night  he  was  on  my  staff  all 
right,  and  he  told  me  that  he'd  do  all  in  his  power 
to  make  the  reading  a  success. 

"  When  I  met  my  manager  and  told  him  about 
it  he  did  a  Moqui  snake  dance,  and  the  next  morn 
ing  there  was  an  announcement  in  the  Arkadelphia 
morning  paper  near  the  top  of  the  first  column, 

announcing  that  c ,  the  famous  reader 

and  entertainer,  whose  successful  efforts  in  this  line 
are  well  known  throughout  the  State  of  Arkansas, 
will  amuse  and  instruct  the  people  of  Arkadelphia 

at  the Church  this  evening,  under  the  auspices 

of  the  Rev. and  other  Arkadelphian 

men  of  the  cloth/ 

u  The  reading  went  through  with  a  rush.  The 
whole  town  turned  out  to  take  it  in.  Both  my  pal 
and  I  were  flat  broke  on  that  morning  and  I  had  had 
to  wash  out  a  white  string  tie  myself  in  my  room  and 
iron  it  with  a  heated  shoe  horn  to  wear  at  the  read 
ing.  After  I  had  read  my  first  two  numbers  that 
night  my  pal  saw  that  the  plates  went  around,  and 
he  counted  the  dust.  The  800  and  odd  people 
in  the  church  chipped  in  a  flat  $194  and  no 
buttons,  and  they  gave  me  a  hand  that  you  could 
have  heard  a  block  away,  at  that,  for  every  number. 
The  clergymen  and  elders  sat  upon  the  platform 


TALE  THE  THIRTEENTH         217 

and  I  couldn't  help  but  think  to  myself  as  I  stood 
up  there,  thus  hedged  in  by  piety  and  black  clothes, 
'  Say,  if  my  poor  old  pious  mother  could  just  see 
me  now  ! ' 

"We  did  eleven  other  towns  in  central  and 
southwest  Arkansas,  but  the  thirteenth  place  we 
struck  saw  the  finish  of  the  tour.  That  place  was 
Malvern,  a  little  town  on  the  St.  Louis,  Iron 
Mountain  and  Southern  Railroad.  We  had  about 
$1,500  between  us  when  we  struck  Malvern,  and 
maybe  we  both  had  the  idea  by  that  time  that  we 
had  too  much  money  without  getting  a  very  swift 
run  for  it.  Anyhow,  my  pal  didn't  work  up  the 
Malvern  community  very  hard.  I  noticed  his 
rather  unusual  lack  of  energy  and  asked  him 
about  it. 

"  '  Well,'  said  he, '  I've  been  trying  to  make  up  my 
mind  ever  since  I  got  awake  this  morning  whether 
I  want  to  begin  on  just  a  quart  or  a  magnum  of 
wine.  That's  a  nice  calculation  and  I  haven't 
figured  it  out  to  my  entire  satisfaction  yet.  But 
it's  going  to  be  one  or  the  other  before  the  sun  goes 
down.  Then  I  noticed  when  I  read  the  results 
this  morning  that  a  horse  won  down  at  New 
Orleans  at  sixty  to  one  that  I'd  have  played  if  I'd 
have  had  to  spout  my  shoes  for  a  dollar.  This 
caused  me  to  reflect  that  I  may  be  wasting  my  time 


218         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

— that  I  ought  to  be  on  the  ground  where  they're 
running.  Finally,  I've  observed  in  the  course  of 
the  last  three  readings  that  your  voice  is  becoming 
slightly  impaired — probably  on  account  of  unnatural 
drought.  What  you  going  to  have  ? ' 

"  It  was  all  off  from  that  moment  of  course. 
We  split  the  $1,500  right  there,  so  there'd  be  no 
growl  later  on,  and  I  went  and  purchased  some  very 
untheological  garments.  Then  we  had  magnums 
on  the  boat  all  the  way  down  to  New  Orleans. 
My  pal  batted  the  books  so  hard  down  there  that 
he  went  out  to  San  Francisco  to  finish  out  his 
string  there.  I  preferred  to  remain  in  New 
Orleans.  I  did  remain  there.  Two  months  after 
I  got  there  I  was  peddling  '  Picturesque  Turkestan/ 
in  112  numbers,  fifty  cents  a  number,  to  the  popu 
lation  of  New  Orleans,  and  not  getting  rich  at  it." 


TALE  THE  FOURTEENTH 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  6  SHEWETH  UP  THE 
VANITY  OF  YE  STURDY  PIONEERS  OF  THE 
NORTHWEST 


TALE  THE  FOURTEENTH 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.  6  SHEWETH  UP  THE 
VANITY  OF  YE  STURDY  PIONEERS  OF  THE 
NORTHWEST 

"  Now,  Portland,  Ore.,  isn't  what  you'd  call  by 
rights  a  nice,  soft  town  in  which  to  go  broke,"  said 
Ex-Tank  No.  6,  thoughtfully  polishing  the  stone 
of  his  four-karat,  blue-white  diamond  ring  with  his 
pocket  handkerchief.  u  Portland  isn't  frosty,  but 
it's  wet.  It  rains  thirteen  months  in  the  year  out 
there,  and  the  gloom  of  the  burg  is  pervasive  and 
pronounced.  You  get  no  sparkling  sunshine  and 
blue  skies  in  Portland  to  throw  momentary  spasms 
of  hope  into  you  when  you're  up  against  it ;  noth 
ing  but  soggy,  dripping  clouds,  clayey  streets,  and 
misery.  The  worst  of  it  is,  the  rum-mills  of 
Portland  are  the  most  attractive  joints  of  the  kind 
on  the  Slope,  so  that  when  you  hit  Portland  with 
nothing  on  you  but  your  constitution  wherewith  to 
try  for  a  win-out,  the  Tantalus  game  played  on 
you  by  the  bright-lighted  booze  factories,  with 
their  pianists,  harpists  and  fiddlers  zipping  away  in 
221 


222         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

all  the  back  rooms,  is  a  hard  proposition  to  endure 
in  the  midst  of  the  exterior  gloom. 

"  Worst  of  it  is,  if  you  walk  into  a  Portland  joy- 
joint  just  to  get  out  of  the  wet,  and  stand  in  front 
of  the  bar  for  two  minutes  without  buying,  you're 
dead  liable  to  get  vagged.  The  barkeep  sizes  you 
up  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye  and  keeps  the  other 
eye  on  the  stop-watch  he  puts  on  strangers  enter 
ing  the  plant.  If  you  don't  call  for  what  you 
want,  but  haven't  got  the  price  of,  within  two 
minutes  flat,  he  sneaks  from  behind  the  bar,  steps 
to  the  front  door,  whistles  for  a  web-foot  cop,  and 
the  next  day  you're  breaking  rock.  They  didn't 
get  me  this  way,  for  I  had  the  finish  of  my  '89 
whirl  in  San  Francisco,  and  when  I  got  to  Portland 
I  didn't  want  anything  but  work  or  a  ticket  East. 
But  I  saw  the  barkeeps  and  the  web-foot  cops  put 
it  on  a  lot  of  other  hard-luckers  for  not  buying 
within  the  specified  time,  and  it  struck  me  that  it 
was  a  cold  and  unfeeling  way  of  handling  strangers. 

"  I  didn't  have  any  particular  reason  for  going  to 
Portland,  anyhow.  I  had  struck  San  Francisco 
from  New  York  a  couple  of  months  before  with  a 
bundle  of  money  and  one  of  those  cinch-betting 
absinthe  things  that  had  such  a  good  start  on  me 
that  I  couldn't  catch  up  with  it  so  long  as  I  had 
the  dust  to  keep  it  going.  I  played  'em  as  far  back 


TALE  THE  FOURTEENTH        223 

as  I  could  at  the  San  Francisco  tracks,  but  it  was 
no  use.  I  ate  up  all  the  I  to  3  third  shots  they 
pushed  at  me,  and  was  even  afraid  to  play  one  to 
win  at  the  cinch-looking  price  of  3  to  5  or  i  to  2 
on,  so  wise  did  the  green  stuff  talk  to  me.  Well, 
you  know  what  the  game  was  out  in  California  at 
that  time.  The  betting  on  the  one  you  liked,  and 
that  figured  to  win,  would  open  up,  say,  at  even 
money,  and  you  could  write  your  own  ticket  on 
the  rest.  After  you'd  got  your  money  down  on 
the  right  one  to  get  the  place,  taking  about  2  to  5 
on  to  make  a  '  moral '  of  it,  the  flash  'ud  come  in 
on  one  of  the  other  skates,  the  price  on  which 
would  hop  down  from  about  15  to  I  to  4  to  5  on. 
Then  there'd  be  flashes  on  one  or  two  more  of 
'em,  and  by  the  time  the  bunch  went  to  the  post 
your  horse  would  be  backed  'way  up  for  a  lobster. 
"  The  nag  that  got  the  biggest  flash  down  always 
won  by  four  blocks,  helped  out  by  the  pailful  of 
cocaine  they'd  give  him,  and  that's  all  there  was  to 
it.  Your  first  favorite,  that  you  played  for  the 
place  at  2  to  5  on,  would  generally  be  '  coming 
strong  at  the  finish  '  and  would  be  put  down  on 
the  charts  as  '  short  of  work,  due  the  next  time 
out.'  The  judges  would  cackle  a  bit  about '  rever 
sals  in  form '  and  then  it  was  up  to  you  to  guess 
which  one  was  c  meant '  to  win  the  next  race. 


224        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"It  was  a  game  that  you  could  only  beat  by 
being  in  the  know,  and  Eastern  pikers  had  no 
business  out  there.  I  was  too  busy  experimenting 
with  the  green  stuff — straight,  drips  and  frappes — 
to  snuggle  up  to  the  clique  that  knew  how  all  the 
races  were  going  to  be  run,  one,  two,  three,  and 
that's  why  they  put  the  final  crimp  in  me  within 
two  weeks  after  I  hit  San  Francisco.  After  I'd 
got  in  hock  for  all  of  the  gear  and  had  done  the 
usual  ten-day  trick  in  the  you-have-them  ward  I 
crawled  out  to  hunt  for  a  job.  California  is  the 
El  Dorado  of  the  world,  maybe  not.  I  never  saw 
so  many  broke  men  in  my  life  as  I  knocked  against 
in  California.  On '  the  level,  there  were  broke 
grafters  from  the  East  working  on  the  streets  of 
'Frisco  for  one  dollar  a  day  and  wearing  plug  hats 
and  silk  socks,  when  I  was  out  there. 

"  I  didn't  see  a  chance  to  pull  out  in  the  middle 
of  that  kind  of  a  game  and  so  I  got  a  job  for  the 
one  trip  as  tenth  assistant  supercargo  of  the  steamer 
Columbia,  bound  from  San  Francisco  for  Portland, 
Oregon.  I  got  my  board  and  passage  for  three  days, 
eighteen  hours  each,  of  freight-checking  work  and 
with  nothing  in  sight  when  I  struck  the  wet  coun 
try.  When  I  got  'paid  off*  from  the  steamer 
on  the  dismal  morning  she  pulled  into  Portland 
all  I  had  besides  a  passable  front  was  an  alii- 


TALE  THE  FOURTEENTH        225 

gator  hand  satchel  with  a  silver-backed  hair  brush 
in  it  that  I  had  somehow  or  other  overlooked 
when  I  was  hocking  things  in  San  Francisco. 
I  got  three  dollars  on  the  satchel  and  brush  ten 
minutes  after  getting  off  the  boat,  ate,  got  a 
shine  and  a  shave  and  then  struck  out  in  the  wet 
for  a  job. 

"  They  were  going  to  pinch  me  for  a  new  crook 
in  town  at  most  of  the  stores  and  offices  where  I 
walked  in  and  said :  '  Gimme  work.'  Several  of  'em 
told  me  that  they  didn't  see  any  sense  in  this  thing 
of  being  broke  and  asked  me  why  I  didn't  scoot  up 
to  Astoria  and  get  a  job  in  a  salmon  cannery,  in 
asmuch  as  the  salmon  season  was  on.  They  think 
every  man  up  there  that's  broke  is  a  Chinnook  or 
a  Siwash,  y'  see.  I  was  beginning  to  think  that 
the  salmon-cleaning  game  would  be  about  my  graft, 
at  that,  when,  along  in  the  afternoon  after  I  had 
hit  about  200  different  commercial  shacks  for  some 
kind  of  a  job,  I  saw  a  sign,  '  Pacific  Historical 
Association,'  shining  in  the  wet  outside  the  second- 
story  window  of  an  office  building.  So  I  went  up 
stairs  to  see  what  kind  of  an  outfit  the  Pacific  His 
torical  Association  was.  There  was  only  one 
occupant  of  the  office,  which  was  littered  with 
new  books,  but  he  was  enough.  He  had  on  all 
colors  of  gig  lamps  and  he  was  from  New  York. 


226        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

He  gave  me  the  open  face  when  I  shambled  in 
with  my  duds  dripping  rain. 

"'  Ha!     You're  from  the  old  town,'  said  he. 

"  l  How  d'je  guess  it  ? '   said  I. 

" l  Oh,  because  you've  got  the  swagger  and  be 
cause  you  look  as  if  you're  four-flushing  under 
adverse  circumstances,'  said  this  hot  card  with  the 
penetrating  eye.  '  Now  when  did  you  say  you'll 
be  wanting  to  go  to  work  on  our  "  History  of  the 
Pioneers  of  Oregon  and  Washington "  ?  To 
morrow  morning,  did  you  say,  you  wanted  to  start 
out  ? ' 

"  Pretty  previous  talk,  wasn't  it  ?  But  I  was  so 
darned  glad  to  light  on  a  duck  from  back  here  that 
knew  how  to  get  to  the  point,  even  if  it  was  a  bluff, 
that  I  warmed  up  to  him  from  the  jump. 

"  '  Quick  action  you're  giving  me  for  my  money, 
ain't  it  ? '  said  I  to  him.  '  What  do  you  want  me 
to  do  with  this  "  History  of  the  Pioneers  of  Ore 
gon  and  Washington  " — write  it  or  sell  it  ? ' 

" l  Help  to  get  the  data,  that's  all.  Book's  not 
out  yet.  We're  getting  it  together  now.  Oh, 
you'll  do  all  right.  Been  hunting  for  you.  Why 
didn't  you  get  in  before  ?  All  right.  You  start 
out  in  the  morning — let's  see,  you  can  go  to  Baker 
City  first  and  clean  up  that  place,  and  then  I'll 
find  you  territory  once  you  get  started.' 


TALE  THE  FOURTEENTH        227 

"'That's  great,'  said  I.  'What  do  I  go  to 
Baker  City  on — my  face  ? ' 

UCI  guess  not,'  said  the  Pacific  Historical  As 
sociation — he  was  the  whole  thing  himself.  c  Don't 
get  gay.  I'll  fix  you  out.  Here's  the  scheme : 
You  dig  out  the  old  geezers,  get  next  to  them, 
interview  'em  about  their  early  experiences,  get  a 
line  on  what  they've  done  for  the  great  and  glori 
ous  West,  with  dates  scattered  in — stories  of  their 
encounters  with  grizzly  bears  when  all  this  region 
was  a  howling  wilderness,  etc. — how  they  built  the 
first  log  hut  this  side  of  Cheyenne,  and  all  that — 
and  then  you  write  it  up — about  1,000  words  for 
each  of  'em,  you  understand — maybe  a  little  more 
for  the  genuine  Heap-Bigs — an*  show  'em  what 
you've  written.  That's  when  you  do  business. 
Their  biographies,  or  autobiographies,  are  to  be 
included  in  the  "  History  of  the  Pioneers  of  Ore 
gon  and  Washington,"  with  a  picture  of  each  of 
'em,  and  it  costs  each  of  'em  $100  a  throw  to 
break  into  the  history.  See  ?  You  get  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  commission  on  all  the  pioneers  you 
write  up.  This  is  no  con.  game.  Don't  get  that 
into  your  head.  It's  on  the  level.  I've  made 
$200,000  at  it,  working  my  way  from  Arizona  up 
here.  It's  like  finding  money.  There's  your 
chance,  if  you  want  to  win  out.' 


228        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

tc '  You're  good,'  said  I.  c  Meantime,  I'm  not 
togged  out  to  make  blufFs  of  this  kind.  And  I 
think  I'd  be  a  frost,  anyhow,  asking  people  ques 
tions  about  their ' 

u '  No  you  wouldn't,'  said  the  Pacific  Historical 
Association.  '  And,  say,  you  want  a  side  line. 
I'm  introducing  a  new  typewriter  out  here. 
Seventy-five  dollars  apiece.  You  can  make  each 
of  the  pioneers  cough  up  for  a  typewriter  and  you 
get  twenty-five  dollars  a  machine.  Come  on  out. 
I'm  going  to  dress  you  up.  Of  course,  you've  got 
no  trunk.  Neither  did  I  when  I  first  hit  Arizona. 
Got  twelve  of  'em  now.' 

u  Say,  that  was  a  queer  snap.  I  couldn't  natu 
rally  take  much  stock  in  it,  for  I  wasn't  any  more 
of  a  come-on  then  than  the  average  hard-lucker 
from  this  town,  but  you  ought  to  have  seen  how  it 
went  through.  The  whirlwind  Pacific  Historical 
Association — he  was  really  a  rattling  nice  fellow, 
and  perfectly  on  the  level — took  me  out  and  togged 
me  out  to  the  limit — suit,  overcoat,  full  sets  of 
gear  of  all  kinds — and  then  registered  me  at  his 
hotel,  the  best  in  the  State  of  Oregon.  I  ate  din 
ner  that  evening  with  him  and  his  pretty  San  Fran 
cisco  wife,  and  you'd  have  thought  they  had  both 
known  me  from  infancy. 

"The  next  morning,  with  fifty  dollars  expense 


TALE  THE  FOURTEENTH        229 

money  in  my  clothes,  I  started  for  Baker  City  to 
write  up  the  pioneers  thereof  and  to  sell  'em  type 
writers.  It  was  something  easy.  They  all  wanted 
to  get  into  the  '  History  of  the  Pioneers  of  Oregon 
and  Washington.'  Young  ducks  not  out  of  their 
thirties  wanted  to  break  into  the  volume,  and  offered 
me  bonuses  to  work  'em  in.  One  of  the  rules  of 
the  Pacific  Historical  Association,  however,  was 
that  no  pioneer  of  less  than  fifty  years  of  age  could 
get  into  the  work.  But  I  had  plenty  of  business  with 
the  old-timers.  I'd  write  them  up  ornately,  filling 
in  all  the  bare  spots  with  pipe-dreamy  yarns,  gen 
erally  winding  up  each  write-up  with  the  statement 
that  the  subject  thereof  had  been  '  frequently  men 
tioned  '  for  Congress  or  for  Governor,  or  for 
'  something  equally  as  good,'  and  within  one  month 
from  the  day  I  met  up  with  B.  Franklin  Granville, 
the  hustling  Pacific  Historical  Association,  I 
counted  up  my  change  in  Seattle  and  found  that  I 
had  about  $980.  I  scattered  the  typewriters 
around  my  trail  and  made  almost  as  much  money 
out  of  'em  as  I  did  out  of  the  write-ups,  and  to  cap 
the  whole  game  I  dug  up  my  father's  missing 
brother — he's  in  for  a  swell  send-off  in  the  History 
of  the  Pioneers  of  Oregon  and  Washington  —  and 
he  didn't  have  a  thing  but  about  60,000  acres  of 
sheep  land,  and  the  sheep  on  the  acres,  in  Malheur 


230        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

County,  Oregon.  He  thought  I  was  a  pretty  nice, 
chesty  young  fellow,  and  he  gave  me  $1,000  for  a 
Christmas  present.  I  was  $3,800  good  when  I 
cashed  in  at  the  office  where  I  had  taken  a  chance 
on  the  wet  sign  of  the  Pacific  Historical  Associa 
tion,  and  B.  Franklin  Granville  got  out  his  book 
and  delivered  the  goods  all  right,  at  that. 

"  Then  I  thought  I'd  go  down  to  the  San  Fran 
cisco  tracks  and  see  if  I  couldn't  get  some  of  that 
money  back  that  I  had  handed  to  the  sure-thing 
layers  of  odds  when  I  went  broke,  and  when  I 
struck  the  Barbary  coast  of  'Frisco  I  just  acciden 
tally  set  up  another  partnership  with  the  green  stuff. 
Oh,  yes,  I  got  back  to  New  York  all  right  a  couple 
of  months  later.  Man  that  had  been  running  an 
Eastern  string  on  the  'Frisco  tracks  gave  up  the 
game  in  disgust,  and  when  he  shipped  his  string 
back  here,  he  let  me  hitch  on,  as  a  feeder  and  rub 
ber,  for  the  freight  ride  across  the  continent.  But 
that  end  of  it's  got  nothing  to  do  with  the  good 
win-out  I  made  in  Portland." 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  5  SPEAKETH   DIVERT- 

INGLY  OF  THE  RELIEVER  STAGE     OF  YE  JAG 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH 

WHEREIN    EX-TANK    NO.  5  SPEAKETH    DIVERTINGLY 
OF  THE  RELIEVER  STAGE  OF  YE  JAG 

"WHEN  No.  9  told  some  time  ago  of  his  in 
voluntary  steamer  trip  to  Galveston  and  how  he 
won  out  of  that  town  I  observed  that  he  wore  a 
certain  perky,  conceited  air,  as  much  as  to  say  that 
'he  was  most  likely  the  only  member  of  this  organi 
zation  that  ever  found  himself  aboard  an  ocean 
going  boat  without  knowing  how  he  got  there," 
said  Ex-Tank  No.  5,  the  member  with  the  two  big 
diamond  rings.  "  I  just  want  to  tell  him  that  he 
wasn't,  or  isn't.  What's  more,  when  No.  9  dis 
covered  himself  on  the  high  seas  he  had  money  and 
a  front,  while  I " 

u  Look  a-here,"  said  No.  7,  the  parliamentarian 
and  kicker,  rising  suddenly.  "What  the  dickens 
is  this  outfit  getting  to  be — a  Snug  Harbor  ? 
What's  the  meaning  of  all  this  sailorizing  talk  ?  I 
put  the  matter  to  the  club :  Ain't  we  had  just 
about  enough  heavy-weather  and  deep-water  chaw 
in  these  experience  meetings  ?  Now,  here  comes 

Five  along  with  a  salty,  green-seas " 

233 


234        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"  Pipe  down,  Seven,"  said  the  club  in  chorus. 
"  Go  ahead,  Five,  and  spring  it." 

"Well.  If  I'd  a  known,  when  I  helped  to  get 
this  gang  together,  that  it  was  going  to  fizzle  into 
a  kind  o'  A/Iariners'  Union,  you  can  bet  your " 

u  Give  us  a  rest,  Seven,"  said  the  Chief  Ex- 
Tank  peremptorily.  "  Five  has  got  the  deck." 

"  I  was  going  to  say,"  resumed  No.  5,  "  that  it's 
all  right  and  easy  when  you  come  to,  wallowing  in 
an  outside  swell  and  in  the  teeth  of  a  howling  gale, 
as  it  were,  and  find  that  you've  got  your  front  and 
your  dustbag  practically  unimpaired,  like  Nine  did 
when  he  woke  up  on  the  Galveston  boat.  But 
this  thing  o'  finding  yourself  swashing  around  in 
blue  water  after  carrying  a  jag  down  to  the  reliever 
stage " 

"Wait  a  minute,  Five,"  interrupted  the  Chief 
Ex-Tank.  "  '  Reliever ' — c  reliever ' — jag  carried 
down  to  the  '  reliever  stage  ' — that's  kind  of  a  new 
one  on  me,  and  I  can  perceive  that  the  other  mem 
bers  seem  to  be  a  bit  puzzled  over  the  expression. 
What's  the  '  reliever  stage  '  of  a  jag,  anyhow  ?  " 

"  Why,  I  am  amazed,"  said  No.  5,  "  that  any 
member  of  this  organization  should  be  ignorant  of 
so  simple  and  direct  a  final-stage  method  to  obtain 
absolutely  required  booze — but,  stay.  Come  to 
think  of  it,  the  reliever  scheme  is  a  Chicago  idea, 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH          235 

and  maybe  I  was  the  first  to  work  it  in  this  town. 
But  just  you  people  let  me  get  this  story  started, 
and  you'll  find  out  how  the  reliever  system  works. 

"That  jag  in  the  fall  of '91  was  set  in  motion 
because  I  was  picking  'em  too  easily  down  at 
Gravesend.  Why,  I  couldn't  lose  at  that  meeting, 
I  tell  you  honest.  I  didn't  pack  around  any  dope 
book  or  handicapping  outfit,  and  I  cut  out  all  con 
sideration  of  weights,  jockeys,  distances,  previous 
time  made,  whole  thing ;  just  played  'em  on  their 
names,  and  I'm  giving  it  to  you  right,  I  couldn't 
lose.  Didn't  get  on  more'n  one  dead  one  out  of 
the  whole  six  on  a  day's  card.  Won  so  much  of 
it  at  that  meeting  that  I  thought  I  was  dreaming — 
used  to  feel,  when  my  pockets  bulged  out  at  the 
wind-up  every  day,  like  hiring  stable  boys  to  turn 
the  hose  on  me  so's  I  could  find  out  if  I  was 
awake.  I  started  in  with  a  fifty  dollar  shoestring 
on  the  first  day,  and  I  had  $750  at  the  finish  of  the 
fourth  day.  That  made  me  too  husky  to  work  at 
an  office  desk. 

"  When  I  went  back  to  the  office  to  tell  'em 
that  I  was  too  strong  for  pen-pushing  any  more 
they  told  me  that  I  was  fired,  anyhow,  and  I  was 
glad  of  it.  I  kept  on  at  the  track,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  first  week  I  had  pushed  two  of  the  bookies 
on  the  dead  line  out  o'  business.  I  got  one  of 'em 


236        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

to  give  me  300  to  I  on  a  combination  of  the  whole 
six  to  win  on  the  last  day  of  the  week,  put  five  dollars 
on  it,  and  it  went  through  in  a  gallop.  Bookie  paid 
me  off  and  then  went  and  bought  himself  a  clay 
pipe  and  ten  cents'  worth  of  tobacco  and  waited 
for  somebody  to  come  along  and  hand  him  money 
to  start  agoing  again. 

"  I  was  doing  a  beer  sozzle  all  this  time,  and 
cutting  the  strong  stuff  out.  Now,  if  I'd  kept  the 
beer  sozzle  going,  I'd  probably  have  owned  the 
track  by  get-away  day,  but  three  days  before  the 
meeting  closed  I  switched  to  whiskey  and  tobasco 
sauce,  with  occasional  absinthes  for  toners,  and  that 
got  me  going.  I  had  soaked  'em  for  $5,200  up  to 
that  third  day  before  the  meeting  closed,  but  the 
switch  from  beer  to  the  hot  stuff  made  me  so 
cautious  that  I  began  then  to  play  'em  on  form. 
The  bookies  had  a  case  of  l  You  lose '  on  me  for 
the  rest  of  the  three  days,  and  at  the  wind-up  of 
the  meeting  I  only  had  $2,800  left.  Pretty  good 
bunch  to  pick  up  from  a  shoestring  at  that.  It 
was  just  good  enough,  anyhow,  to  make  me  decide 
that  I  wasn't  going  to  do  any  more  work  for  the 
remainder  of  my  life.  Me  work  any  more  ?  Why, 
I  forgot  what  work  meant. 

"  By  the  time  the  meeting  closed  the  tobasco 
sauce  and  things  were  producing  night  pictures  for 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH  237 

me  of  pink  zebras  crossing  purple  bridges  and  that 
kind,  but  I  couldn't  see  any  knock-off  in  it  when 
I  was  weighted  down  with  a  $2,800  bundle.  So 
I  kept  the  jag  moving  at  a  1:40  flat  gait,  and  in 
order  to  enjoy  it  in  comfort  I  went  uptown  and 
hired  a  seven-room  furnished  flat  all  for  myself, 
got  a  Dutchman  for  a  cook,  staked  the  refrigerator 
to  a  stack  of  greens  and  reds  in  quart  bottles,  and 
started  in  to  relish  life.  Now,  if  I'd  only  ha'  stayed 
inside  the  flat,  and  not  gone  jamming  around  town, 
I  might  have — but  there's  no  use  talking  about 
what  I  might  have  done.  The  flat  wasn't  big 
enough  for  me  after  the  sun  went  down,  and  when 
I  got  downtown  with  the  gang  my  $2,800  began 
to  fall  off  me  so  quick  that  it  made  me  sneeze. 
At  the  end  of  three  weeks  I  was  down  to  $300, 
and  I  figured  that  I  would  blow  in  $100,  pinch 
$200  for  hospital  money  and  a  starter  when  I  got 
through  seeing  the  icthyosaurians  and  things  in  the 
bug-ward,  and  then  get  a  job  somewhere  and  hold 
on  to  it  until  the  spring  races  started,  when  I  in 
tended  to  drive  every  man  in  the  game  out  o'  busi 
ness. 

"That  calculation  didn't  go  through.  I  got 
touched  for  the  whole  $300  by  a  night-liner.  He 
only  rolled  me  for  the  long  green,  and  let  me  hang 
on  to  my  jewellery.  I  didn't  make  any  holler,  for 


238        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

I  couldn't  have  fastened  it  on  him,  but  I  had  a 
think  coming  when  I  woke  up  broke  the  next 
morning.  My  pin  went  first.  Got  fifty  dollars 
on  that.  Then  the  ring  got  in  for  ninety  dollars. 
The  ring  money  lasted  me  a  couple  o'  days.  The 
watch  was  the  next  to  go,  for  twenty-five  dollars 
only.  That  supplied  the  jag  for  twenty-four 
hours.  My  month  at  my  flat  was  up  by  this  time, 
and  the  janitor  was  putting  up  a  yell  for  another 
month's  rent  in  advance.  Told  him  to  chase  him 
self,  and  fired  my  Dutch  cook,  and  moved  to  a 
room.  My  dress  suit  had  to  go  next.  I  got  ten 
dollars  on  it.  That  ten  lasted  me  for  fully  twenty 
minutes.  After  it  was  finished  I  looked  through 
the  closet.  The  weather  was  still  warm,  and  so  I 
figured  I  could  spare  the  topcoat  and  the  overcoat. 
Got  ten  dollars  on  them,  and  this  kept  the  jag 
jogging  along  at  a  moderate  pace  for  a  night.  I 
got  down  to  the  suits  the  next  morning.  Got  five 
dollars  for  the  couple  of  good  ones  that  I  wrapped 
up  and  took  out,  but  by  the  time  evening  came 
around  the  jag  was  hollering  for  another  outlay. 
Then  I  put  on  the  best  suit  I  had,  a  black  cutaway 
outfit,  and  had  an  Eighth  avenue  old-clothes  man 
come  around  and  take  a  look  at  all  the  duds  I  had 
left.  He  gave  me  $2.35  for  the  lot,  and  packed 
them  away  with  him.  Next  morning  I  woke  up 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH          139 

without  the  price,  and  I  had  been  nibbled  on  by 
pale  blue  giraffes  all  night,  at  that.  So  I  had  to 
put  the  reliever  act  through. 

"  I  went  down  to  a  Baxter  street  joint  and  had 
the  gazebu  look  over  the  suit  I  had  on.  I  asked 
him  what  kind  of  a  suit  he'd  give  me,  with  five 
dollars  to  boot,  for  the  cutaway  rig.  He  rigged 
me  out  in  a  cottony,  second-hand  sack  outfit,  and 
gave  me  the  fiver  in  exchange  for  the  good  suit. 
That's  the  reliever  act,  gentlemen.  The  geezer 
relieves  you  of  the  togs  you  put  up  a  front  with 
in  exchange  for  a  bum  outfit  and  the  price.  I  got 
back  to  him  the  next  morning,  and  asked  him  how 
much  he'd  give  me  to  boot,  with  any  old  kind  of  an 
outfit,  for  the  suit  he'd  peddled  me  the  day  before. 
You  ought  to  have  seen  the  rig  he  put  on  me  then 
— the  high-water  boys  that  only  reached  to  my 
shoe  tops,  vest  that  he  had  to  split  up  the  back  to 
get  on  me,  and  a  patched  coat  that  was  No.  13, 
boys'  size.  I  got  seventy-five  cents  to  boot. 
That  was  the  second  and  final  stage  of  that  reliever 
turn.  I  got  over  to  the  Bowery  then,  and  began 
to  use  up  what  I  could  of  the  five-cent  hooters 
purveyed  on  that  thoroughfare. 

"  The  seventy-five  cents  was  a  lot  of  money  for 
that  purpose,  and  I  don't  just  remember  how  I 
managed  to  drift  down  to  the  pier  under  the 


240        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Brooklyn  Bridge  without  being  pinched  as  a  vag 
for  I  surely  was  a  holy  show  in  the  last  fitout 
the  Baxter  street  man  gave  me.  I  remember  get 
ting  into  a  good-natured  chaw  with  some  long 
shoremen  down  there,  and  I  guessed  I  must  ha' 
asked  them  how  to  get  aboard  a  deep-sea  boat 
without  coughing  up  a  ticket  or  the  price  of  one. 
It  don't  make  any  difference,  anyhow,  what  I  did 
— the  fact  remains  that  I  woke  up  the  next  morn 
ing  in  the  steerage — in  the  steerage,  mind  you — 
and  not  in  any  hifalutin,  stateroom,  like  No.  9  did 
when  he  went  to  Galveston — of  the  steamship 
Algonquin  of  the  Clyde  line  bound  for  Charleston 
and  Jacksonville.  A  couple  o'  other  ducks  in  the 
steerage  told  me  the  name  of  the  boat  and  where 
she  was  going.  They  said  that  a  couple  of  long 
shoremen  had  pushed  me  aboard,  through  an  open 
deadlight  or  something  like  that,  'way  up  forward. 
They  got  me  aboard  in  the  shelter  of  a  lot  of  bales 
of  goods,  which  is  why  the  purser  or  the  chap  at 
the  gangway  didn't  get  next  to  me.  They  said 
the  purser  hadn't  been  around  yet  for  the  steerage 
tickets,  but  that  I'd  better  drill  out  o'  sight  for  a 
while,  because  the  purser  was  liable  to  be  around 
at  any  minute.  They  spread  a  lot  of  old  tarpaulin 
over  me,  and,  sure  enough,  the  purser  did  come 
around  down  below  for  the  steerage  tickets  a  little 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH  241 

while  later.  I  didn't  know  it  till  one  of  the  steer 
age  ducks  gave  me  a  dig  and  told  me  it  was  all 
right,  and  that  I  could  get  out  from  beneath  the 
tarpaulin. 

"  I  don't  need  to  go  into  details  as  to  how  I  felt 
for  the  information  of  the  honored  members  of  the 
Harlem  Club  of  Former  Alcoholic  Degenerates. 
I'd  been  nursing  that  jag,  you  understand,  for  more 
than  six  weeks  and  giving  it  about  everything  it 
asked  for,  and  here  I  was,  a  blooming  steerage 
stowaway  on  a  coaster,  and  seeing  all  colors  of 
pythons  and  things  in  broad  daylight,  and  no  more 
chance  of  getting  a  drink  than  of  walking  ashore  ! 
It  was  a  bad  job.  It  was  the  worst  job  I  ever 
stacked  up  against.  I  bummed  a  cigarette  from 
one  of  the  chaps  in  the  steerage,  a  painter  who 
was  going  down  to  Jacksonville  to  get  a  winter 
job,  and  that  cigarette  doped  me  up  a  little  and 
kept  me  from  having  'em  right  there,  and  bad.  I 
extracted  a  few  more  cigarettes  from  him  in  the 
course  of  the  two-and-a-half-day  trip,  and  smoked 
them  because  I  wanted  to  forget.  I  was  the 
toughest-looking  mug  in  the  steerage,  and  they 
were  a  fierce-looking  lot,  too.  I  forgot  to  say  that, 
down  to  the  time  of  my  getting  aboard  the  ship,  I 
had  had  a  good  derby  hat.  I  must  have  gone  to 
sleep  somewhere,  for  the  hat  I  had  when  I  came 


242         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

to  on  the  boat  was  the  rankest,  batteredest  look 
ing,  variety-turn  derby  you  ever  saw.  There  was 
a  monogram  pasted  inside  of  it  that  read, 'A. 
Wappl,  Wien,'  and  I  guess  the  Austrian  who 
traded  his  lid  off  for  mine  while  I  slept  must  have 
been  some  broken-down  sport  from  Vienna.  The 
soberer  I  got  the  more  the  horrible  picture  I  made 
worked  on  me.  You  never  saw  a  picture  of  a 
hobo  that  looked  half  so  bad  as  I  looked.  But 
there  was  no  help  for  it.  There  was  no  way  out, 
and  I  didn't  see  any  way  out  even  after  I  landed, 
for  a  man  that's  broke  can't  do  a  graft  of  any  kind 
anywhere  if  he  hasn't  got  a  front  to  put  up.  I 
intended  to  go  right  on  with  the  boat  down  to 
Jacksonville,  but  that  was  not  to  be.  The  purser 
came  nosing  around  the  steerage  a  few  minutes 
before  the  boat  tied  up  at  the  Charleston  wharf 
and  he  spotted  me.  My  face  wasn't  familiar  to 
him. 

"  l  Stowaway,  hey  ? '  said  he  to  me.  '  They  vag 
stowaways  in  this  town,  my  bucko.  I'll  turn  you 
over  to  the  dock  cop  when  we  tie  up.' 

"  And  he  did. 

" c  Here's  a  stone  crusher  for  the  chain  gang,' 
said  the  purser  to  the  cop  after  he  had  taken  me 
over  the  gangway. 

"The    cop,   a    big,  good-natured   dub,   led   me 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH  243 

along  the  pier  shed  to  its  entrance  on  East  Bay 
street,  I  think  it  was,  and  turned  me  loose. 

" c  There's  a  freight  or  two  out  for  the  South 
this  afternoon,  Willie,'  said  he  to  me.  '  Better  hop 
one/  I  walked  away  down  the  street. 

"  It  was  a  cold,  late  October  morning  and  rain 
ing  hard.  If  there's  any  gloomier  place  on  the 
map  than  Charleston  on  a  cold,  rainy  day  in  the 
fall,  I  never  saw  it.  But  I  had  to  walk.  I  saw  a 
lot  o'  black  and  white  cops  eyeing  me  pretty  hard, 
and  I  had  to  walk.  I  was  wet  through  in  three 
minutes  and  shivering,  and  the  trip  had  worn  the 
jag  off  so  that  I  was  hungry,  but  I  had  to  keep 
a-moving  if  I  wanted  to  stay  off  the  rock  pile. 
Say,  d'ye  know  that  I  envied  the  coons  that  were 
trucking  cotton  under  the  dry  pier  sheds  ?  I  did, 
for  a  fact.  I  reflected  that  when  they  knocked  off 
work  at  night  they  had  some  kind  of  a  shack  to  go 
to  and  get  warm,  and  some  kind  of  a  shakedown  to 
have  a  doss  on,  and  an  eat  coming  to  them  right 
along.  I  even  figured  on  the  pickaninnies  and 
comfortable  cur  dogs  they  probably  had  around 
their  wickieups;  and  I  certainly  felt  a  heap  lonesome 
trudging  along  there  in  the  cold  and  wet  outside 
the  pier  sheds. 

"I  don't  like  to  think  of  that  day.  I  don't 
know  how  I  got  through  it.  I  remember  that  I 


244        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

crept  up  an  alleyway  to  the  back  door  of  one  of  the 
hotels,  and  struck  a  guy  with  a  white  paper  cap  on 
for  a  hand-out.  My  rig-out  was  against  me,  and 
he  gave  me  the  quick  chase.  When  it  began  to 
get  dark,  and  still  raining,  I  thought  I  might  as 
well  go  to  some  station  house  and  vag  myself,  for 
I  began  to  think  I'd  croak  from  the  cold  and  the 
wet.  Just  as  this  idea  got  into  my  head,  though, 
I  passed  by  the  fireroom  of  some  kind  of  a  mill, 
and  I  walked  in.  A  big,  black  darky  was  firing 
the  furnaces.  I  asked  him  if  he'd  let  me  sleep  in 
the  furnace  room  during  his  watch.  The  coon 
looked  at  me  closely  for  half  a  minute.  They've 
got  intuition,  those  people. 

ct  l  He'p  yo'sef,  boss/  said  he.  'Yo'  kin  shake 
down  in  dat  cohnuh.  Yo'  all's  f'um  de  No'th, 
ahn't  yo'  ?  Ah's  dun  bin  putty  nigh  col*  t'  def 
up  dat  a-way  mahse'f.' 

"  The  big  coon  fireman  gave  me  a  handful  of 
newspapers  to  put  under  my  head  for  a  pillow,  and 
I  fell  down  into  the  corner  he  pointed  out,  close  to 
the  furnace,  and  had  a  sleep  the  like  of  which  I 
never  enjoyed  before  or  since.  I  slept  until  five 
o'clock  the  next  morning,  and  then  the  darky  fire 
man  shook  me  up  and  told  me  I'd  better  be  moving 
on  before  the  engineer  came  dovtjn,  or  my  being  in 
the  furnace  room  might  get  him  into  trouble.  So 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH         245 

I  hunched  together  and  went  out  into  the  cold  and 
wet  again,  for  it  was  still  pouring  down  rain. 

"I  was  trudging  down  East  Bay  street  along 
about  eight  o'clock  that  morning,  without  a  win- 
out  idea  in  my  head,  and  hungry  as  the  devil,  when 
I  met  a  chap  I  had  known  in  New  York.  He  had 
been  a  receiver  of  telegraph  messages  at  one  of  the 
windows  of  the  main  office  of  the  Western  Union 
on  Broadway  when  I  knew  him,  and  he  was  then 
taking  messages  at  the  window  of  the  Charleston 
office.  He  didn't  know  me,  when  he  looked  at 
me,  from  an  elbow  of  zinc  pipe,  and  you  couldn't 
blame  him  at  that,  but  he  remembered  me  all  right 
when  I  told  him  who  I  was,  and  he  was  all  right, 
too,  that  chap.  He  took  me  around  to  a  feed  shop 
— and  got  looked  at,  too,  pretty  hard,  for  connubzin 
with  a  hobo — and  then  he  braved  his  landlady  by 
taking  me  to  his  dinky,  but  warm,  little  hall  room. 
There  he  planted  me  with  a  pipe,  a  box  of  to 
bacco,  and  the  morning  paper — oh,  he  certainly 
was  good  to  me  !  He  told  me  to  wait  till  he  got 
back  for  lunch,  and  he'd  rig  me  out  in  a  fit-out  of 
his  duds.  After  I  got  shaved  and  bathed  up  and 
togged  out  in  his  No.  2  suit  I  began  to  feel  like  a 
white  man.  I  knew  I  had  to  take  a  chance  if  I 
wanted  to  win  out  and  ever  get  back  to  New  York. 
I'd  been  reading  the  entries  for  the  Jerome  Park 


246        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

races  in  the  News  and  Courier.  I  had  one  of  those 
lightning,  dead-sure  hunches  that  I  had  three  of  the 
races  right.  I  asked  my  telegraphing  friend  if  there 
was  a  poolroom  in  Charleston.  He  told  me  where 
one  was  run  on  the  quiet. 

" '  A  two-spot'll  be  enough/  I  told  him,  and  I 
found  the  poolroom.  I  put  the  two  dollars  on 
Firenzi  at  5  to  i  to  win.  It  went  through.  I  put 
the  ten  dollars  on  Lamplighter  to  win  at  10  to  I. 
That  went  through,  too,  in  a  canter.  Then  I 
borrowed  a  dopebook  and  went  at  it.  I  wanted  to 
feel  sure  that  Long  Fellow  was  going  to  win  the  last 
race,  no  matter  how  long  a  price  they  put  on  him. 
The  house  betting  on  Long  Fellow  was  already  12 
to  i.  I  couldn't  see  anything  in  it  but  Long  Fellow, 
and  yet  there  were  ten  good  ones  in  the  race  at 
shorter  prices.  I  didn't  make  any  side  steps  about 
it,  but  just  waited  for  the  track  betting  to  come  in. 
Long  Fellow  started  at  15  to  i,  and  went  up 
to  20.  Then  I  planted  the  $100  William  on  him. 
It  was  a  mile  and  a  furlong  race.  Long  Fellow 
didn't  get  so  much  as  a  call,  not  even  a  whistle, 
until  the  stretch,  and  my  shoulders  got  scroonched 
down  again.  Then  it  was,  all  of  a  sudden,  c  Long 
Fellow  in  the  stretch  by  a  head,  Top  Gallant 
second,'  and,  for  the  wind-up,  l  Long  Fellow  wins 
easy  by  three  lengths.' 


TALE  THE  FIFTEENTH  247 

"I  walked  out  of  that  poolroom  with  $2,100. 
They  paid  it  to  me  pretty  reluctantly,  though, 
thinking,  I  suppose,  that  I  was  a  wire  tapper.  But 
I  had  it  in  my  kick  all  the  same,  when  the  boy  that 
had  been  good  to  me  got  home  from  his  office.  I 
passed  him  over  a  thousand,  and  you  ought  to  have 
seen  him  look  at  me : 

" '  Damn  Charleston,'  he  said  after  a  while. 
'  I'm  going  back  to  New  York/ 

"  I  waited  in  Charleston  for  a  few  days,  until  the 
Aglonquin  stopped  there  on  her  return  trip  up  to 
New  York,  and  when  she  got  in  my  friend  and  I 
hired  a  couple  of  bridal  chambers  for  the  cruise  up 
to  New  York.  I  sat,  during  the  trip,  at  the  right 
side  of  the  purser  who  had  chucked  me  over  the 
side,  expecting  me  to  be  pinched  for  the  rock  pile, 
but  he  didn't  know  it.  That's  the  difference 
between  a  front  and  no  front." 


TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  (HOODOO)  No.  13  BECOMETH 
DISCURSIVE  AS  TO  THE  DREAMY  ISLES  OF  YE 
PACIFIC 


TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH 

WHEREIN  EX-TANK.  (HOODOO)  NO.  13  BECOMETH 
DISCURSIVE  AS  TO  THE  DREAMY  ISLES  OF  YE 
PACIFIC 

"THIS  isn't  so  much  about  my  final  win-out 
and  the  fun  I've  had  ever  since  in  being  good  as  it 
is  about  the  smallness  of  the  world,"  said  Ex-Tank 
(Hoodoo)  No.  13.  "  Even  when  you  look  at  it 
all  four  ways  this  world  isn't  much  bigger  than  a 
gob  o'  gum.  If  it  was,  I  wouldn't  be  here  to-night 
enjoying  my  own  goodness  and  reprobating  evil 
of  all  kinds  whatsoever,  especially  over-indulgence 
in  alcoholic  stimulants.  I'd  probably  be  some-- 
where  in  the  middle  of  Turkest 

"  But  that  brings  me  to  where  this  thing  started, 
to  that  time  down  in  New  Orleans  when  the  win 
ter  track  put  me  up  against  it  and  when  I  tried  to 
make  good  for  board  and  keep  by  selling  '  Pictur 
esque  Turkestan,'  in  112  numbers,  fifty  cents  a 
number,  to  people  who  all  looked  upon  me  as  a 
second-story  worker  trying  to  get  the  lay  of  the 
houses  and  sicked  the  dogs  on  me.  I  couldn't  get 
251 


252         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

used  to  that,  and  so  when  I  ran  in  at  my  boarding- 
house  with  a  postal  clerk  who  had  a  straight  tour 
all  the  way  from  New  Orleans  to  Washington,  and 
who  offered  to  smuggle  me  up  on  his  car,  under 
the  bags,  as  far  as  the  capital,  I  took  him  in  a  min 
ute,  and  mighty  grateful,  at  that,  to  get  up  near  the 
edge  of  the  world.  I  got  a  temporary  sub.  job 
conductoring  on  an  electric  car  for  a  month  or  so 
in  Washington,  and  when  that  flattened  out  I  shook 
dice  with  myself  to  see  whether  it  'ud  be  New 
York  or  Chicago.  Chicago  won.  I  had  twenty 
dollars  saved  up  and  I  went  across  the  aqueduct 
bridge  in  Washington  to  a  bank  layout  and  on  one 
boxful  ran  the  twenty  dollar  shoe  string  up  into 
what  looked  like  a  cordage  trust  to  me  then — $245. 
I  togged  out,  keeping  the  frosty  eye  turned  to  the 
red  stuff,  and  bought  a  parlor  car  ticket  to  Chicago. 
It  was  right  on  this  parlor  car  that  the  whole  game 
began. 

When  the  train  pulled  out  of  Washington,  there 
was  only  one  other  occupant  of  the  parlor  car  be 
sides  myself — a  very  handsome,  self-contained, 
well-groomed  woman  of  thirty  or  under.  I  had  a 
chair  five  or  six  numbers  behind  hers,  and  I  occu 
pied  myself  for  the  first  twenty  miles  or  so  out  of 
Washington  in  studying  the  fine  contour  of  the 
back  of  her  head,  and  in  mentally  jolting  myself 


TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH  253 

for  not  winning  one  like  that,  settling  down,  and 
being  a  good  citizen  of  the  republic.  Reflections 
such  as  these  made  me  tired,  as  usual,  and  I  fell  to 
nodding.  I  was  awakened  by  some  talking,  and 
when  I  rubbed  my  eyes  I  saw  a  drunken  dude  ad 
dressing  himself  to  the  lady  up  forward  in  the  car. 
He  would  have  looked  a  chump  had  he  been  en 
tirely  sober ;  drunk,  he  was  a  show.  I  could  see 
that  he  didn't  know  the  lady,  and  that  he  was  ad 
dressing  himself  to  her  without  her  permission — 
for  she  was  glancing  back  in  my  direction.  I 
walked  up  to  him.  He  turned  upon  me  with  dude 
ferocity. 

" i  Johnny,'  said  I,  pulling  the  bell  cord,  '  you 
don't  want  to  ride  on  this  train.  Take  the  next 
one.  I'm  going  to  ditch  you.' 

"  The  train  came  rapidly  to  a  standstill,  and  I 
knew  that  it  was  important  for  me  to  dump  the 
little  blackguard  before  the  conductor  heaved  in 
sight.  So  I  seized  him  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck, 
persuaded  him  to  the  vestibule  door  with  my  knee 
in  the  small  of  his  back  and  let  him  down  a  gentle 
declivity.  He  mumbled  that  he  was  only  going  as 
far  as  Harper's  Ferry  to  his  shooting  lodge,  but  I 
told  him  that  he  could  make  a  signal  flag  of  his 
shirt  and  halt  the  next  train.  Then  I  let  him  roll 
down  the  little  mossy  decline  and  hustled  back  to 


254        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

my  chair  just  as  the  conductor  came  running  in 
from  the  rear  coach.  He  asked  me  if  I  had  pulled 
the  bell  cord,  and  I  told  him  yes — that  I'd  done  it 
accidentally  with  the  crook  of  my  cane.  He  re 
garded  me  with  suspicion,  but  he  had  no  notion 
that  I  had  ditched  one  of  his  passengers  on  the  edge 
of  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains. 

"  The  lady  thanked  me  after  the  conductor  left 
the  car.  I  didn't  want  to  make  her  think  that  she 
had,  out  of  courtesy,  to  be  chummy  with  me  just 
because  I  had  protected  her  from  the  drunken  dude, 
and  so  I  didn't  press  any  talk  on  her,  but  went  back 
to  my  seat  and  figured  on  what  a  nice  twenty-mile 
walk  the  duck  that  I  dumped  would  have  before 
pulling  up  to  the  gate  of  his  lodge  at  or  near  Har 
per's  Ferry.  It  was  consoling  to  think  that  maybe 
he'd  sue  the  road  and  get  $50,000  or  $100,000 
damages  out  of  it — not.  I  met  the  lady  face  to  face 
in  the  dining  car  two  or  three  times  during  the 
journey  to  Chicago  and  she  nodded  to  me  pleas 
antly,  but  I  never  was  much  in  the  fresh  guy  line, 
and  I  didn't  try  to  scrape  up  an  acquaintance  with 
her.  I  saw  her  in  the  station  in  Chicago,  when 
we  were  debarking,  and  she  gave  me  a  pleasant 
smile  and  disappeared.  In  the  swirl  of  the  game 
that  I  stacked  up  against  in  Chicago  from  the  day 
I  hit  the  place  I  forgot  all  about  the  incident. 


TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH  255 

"  The  town  of  Boreas  and  the  bad  aniline  booze 
thereof  had  me  down  and  out  within  a  couple  of 
months.  It  was  coming  on  winter  and  I  had  some 
thinks  about  striking  out  for  the  coast ;  the  Chicago 
winter  chaps  my  lips.  I  didn't  know  how  to  make 
San  Francisco  without  a  front,  and  I  had  passed  up 
the  front  in  trying  to  beat  the  Chicago  game. 
Lucky  Baldwin  had  been  racing  a  string  of  Cali 
fornia  horses  on  the  Chicago  tracks  that  summer 
and  I  met  up  with  one  of  his  assistant  trainers,  a 
man  I'd  met  when  I  was  well  in  the  push  on 
the  Southern  tracks.  The  trainer  had  a  couple  of 
carloads  of  Lucky's  horses  ready  for  the  trip  to  the 
coast,  and  he  took  me  along.  I  landed  in  San 
Francisco  with  four  dollars  and  a  healthy  appetite 
for  those  quart  bottles  of  red  wine,  with  cock 
roaches  in  'em,  that  you  get  out  there  two  for 
two-bits. 

"  It  was  a  Saturday  morning  when  I  got  into 
San  Francisco  that  time,  and  I  found  out  as  soon 
as  I  got  there  that  racing  was  a  dead  game  in  Cali 
fornia  for  that  winter.  The  owners  of  the  tracks 
were  scrapping  among  themselves,  and  the  Legisla 
ture  shut  down  on  the  runners  altogether  that  sea 
son.  That  dished  me  on  two  or  three  good  things 

O  O 

that   Baldwin's  man  told   me   he   intended   to  put 
through.     I  circulated  around,  and  found  that  the 


256        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

whole  gang  from  the  East  had  gone  back  there  in 
disgust  when  it  was  announced  that  there  was  to  be 
no  racing.  So  I  didn't  know  a  soul  in  town,  and  I 
was  sore  because  I  hadn't  stayed  back  East  myself. 
I  had  to  pass  up  the  cochineal  in  quarts,  and  got  a 
job  in  a  hardware  store  for  eight  dollars  a  week.  It 
was  a  cerulean  proposition,  but  there  wasn't  any 
thing  else  for  it.  After  paying  my  board  with  the 
bulk  of  my  first  week's  pay,  I  took  the  remainder 
of  the  bunch  and  went  down  to  the  Orpheum  to 
seek  forgetfulness  of  wrought-iron  nails  and  copper 
tacks  in  a  variety  show.  I  coughed  a  dollar  for  a 
seat  in  the  orchestra. 

u  There  was  a  fine-looking  chap  in  the  seat  on 
my  right  who  seemed  to  have  been  dining  pretty 
well.  He  was,  as  I  say,  a  fine-looking,  big  man, 
thirty-five  or  around  that,  gig-lamped  and  togged 
to  the  limit,  but  he  had  sure  been  toying  with  the 
sparkling  stufF  before  he  got  to  the  show.  He 
began  to  talk  to  me  and  from  that  he  began  buying 
the  gold  seal  in  quarts. 

" '  I've  been  so  long  away  from  the  coast,'  he 
said  after  a  while,  'that  I'm  lonesome.  I  don't 
break  away  from  home  and  fireside  only  once  every 
two  or  three  years,  and  every  time  I  get  back  here 
the  fewer  people  I  know.' 

" '  Well,'  said  I,  '  this   town  isn't  growing  any 


TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH          257 

better  in  your  absence,  and  that's  the  reason  I  ad 
vise  you  to  sort  o'  keep  that  wad  of  yours  under 
cover,  and  to  leave  the  gig-lamps  at  your  hotel, 
while  you're  out  having  fun.  There  are  a  lot  of 
natural-born  pinchers  of  shiny  stuff  out  this  way, 
as  of  course  you  know/ 

"  He  looked  me  over  and  told  me  I  was  right. 
Then  he  bought  another  quart,  and,  after  inspect 
ing  me  pretty  carefully,  he  asked  me  how  I  was 
making  out.  Very  badly,  I  told  him. 

"  <•  Well,  I'll  tell  you,'  he  said.  c  I  don't  know 
anything  about  you  except  that  you've  got  a  square 
jaw  and  a  proper  Mulligan  look,  but  I  guess  you're 
worth  taking  a  chance  on,  at  that.  I've  got  one 
of  the  biggest  coffee  plantations  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands.  It's  a  few  miles  out  of  Hilo,  on  the  is 
land  of  Hawaii.  A  kid  cousin  of  mine  has  been 
with  me  as  timekeeper — I  run  300  to  500  coolies 
during  the  busy  season — during  the  past  couple  of 
years,  and  he  wants  to  break  off  for  a  year's  vaca 
tion  up  here  in  the  States.  I  pay  him  $200  a 
month  and  he  lives  with  me.  Want  the  job  ? ' 

"  Now,  I  figured  this  to  be  pipe  talk  at  first,  but 
after  a  couple  of  minutes'  reflection  I  could  see 
that  this  man  was  too  solid  to  be  a  smoker  of 
seconds. 

"  '  Just  about,'  said  I. 


258         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"'All  right.  You're  engaged,'  he  said,  and 
then  again  I  thought  he  might  be  talking  through 
his  chapeau,  for  he  didn't  mention  the  thing  again 
until  after  the  show.  I  was  going  to  bid  him 
good-bye,  and  held  out  my  hand. 

ut Where  you  going?'  he  said,  sort  of  sur 
prised.  c  As  my  timekeeper,  it's  up  to  you  to 
keep  tab  on  me  until  next  Monday  morning,  when 
we're  going  to  take  the  steamer  Australia  for 
Honolulu/ 

" c  Say,  is  all  this  on  the  level  ? '  I  couldn't 
help  but  ask  him. 

"  That  kind  of  nettled  him. 

" '  You've  got  to  come  to  taw  with  a  whole  lot 
more  suddenness  that  this  if  you  expect  to  work 
for  me,  my  boy,'  he  said,  and  then  we  went  to  the 
Palace  Hotel,  where  he  was  staying,  and  he  showed 
me  a  lot  of  pictures  of  his  place  down  in  the 
Hawaiian  Islands.  Then  he  togged  me  out  in 
some  of  his  clothes — we  were  the  same  size,  and 
he  said  they'd  do  until  the  stores  opened  Monday, 
when  he'd  fix  me  out  in  a  new  rig — and  informed 
me  that  I  was  drawing  pay  from  that  day,  inclusive. 
He  registered  me  at  the  Palace,  and  I'm  bound  to 
say  that  there  was  action  in  every  move  he  made 
between  that  Saturday  midnight  and  the  hour  we 
took  the  Australia  on  the  following  Monday.  If 


TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH  259 

he  didn't  blow  in  $500  during  that  period  he  didn't 
spend  a  cent,  and  he  never  got  under  the  tide, 
either,  but  was  game  and  sensible  enough  to  keep 
just  on  edge  and  no  more.  The  trip  down  on  the 
Australia  was  sort  of  a  sobering  up  proposition — a 
gradual  taper,  but  not  too  gradual.  I  felt  like  a 
two-year-old  when  we  pulled  into  the  harbor  of 
Honolulu  seven  days  later.  I  found  the  boss  to 
be  a  dignified  and  quiet  man  and  he  didn't  sidestep 
a  little  bit,  after  his  jamboree  was  over,  over  the 
compact  he  had  made  with  me  at  the  Orpheum 
variety  show.  He  explained  the  whole  coffee-rais 
ing  game  to  me  and  I  in  turn  gave  him  a  sort  of  a 
sketch  of  the  damphoolishness  I  had  been  mixing 
up  in  for  the  past  few  years.  When  we  got  to 
Honolulu  we  knew  and  liked  each  other. 

"  After  a  couple  of  days  in  Honolulu,  during 
which  he  introduced  me  around  to  the  Presi 
dent  and  the  Cabinet  and  the  Judges  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  and  a  few  people  like  that — and 
wasn't  I  thinking  of  the  '  Picturesque  Turkestan ' 
days,  though  ! — we  took  the  inter-island  boat  Like- 
Like  and  drew  into  the  harbor  of  Hilo  the  next 
morning. 

"'My  wife  didn't  expect  me  so  soon,'  said  my 
boss,  '  so  she's  not  down  here  to  meet  me.' 

"  Then  we  got  into  a  hack  and  drove  eight  or 


260        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

ten  miles  out  into  the  country  (there'd  be  no  use 
in  my  trying  to  describe  such  country  as  that — it 
was  a  plain  dope-dream  for  me)  to  his  ranch. 
Well,  there  was  about  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see 
of  it,  and  the  home  in  the  middle  of  it  was  a 
bungalow  palace.  My  boss's  wife  heard  the  rattle 
of  the  carriage  wheels,  and  she  hurried  out  to  the 
front  veranda.  She  was  still  as  pretty  as  a  picture. 
I  knew  her  in  a  minute,  but  I  wasn't  going  to  say 
anything. 

"After  the  first  few  hugs  were  over  the  boss 
turned  to  me  and  introduced  me  to  his  wife. 

"  '  New  timekeeper,  to  take  Joe's  place,'  said  he. 
1  Good  fellow,  and  you'll  like  him.' 

"  Meantime  she  was  sizing  me  up  with  a  queer 
little  pucker  about  her  forehead.  Then  her  face 
lit  up,  and  she  flushed. 

"  i  Why,'  she  suddenly  exclaimed,  c  aren't  you 
the  gentleman  who — six  months  ago — train  from 
Washington  to  Chicago — why,  of  course  you  are  ! 
I  remember  you  perfectly,  and  you  remember  me, 
for  you  are  smiling  over  it.  Why,  John,  this  is 
the  gentleman  who ' 

"Well,  she  certainly  did  give  me  the  cordial 
handshake  while  she  was  telling  her  mystified  hus 
band  about  that  little  incident  on  the  train  near  the 
edge  of  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains.  She  had  told 


TALE  THE  SIXTEENTH  261 

him  about  the  affair  as  soon  as  she  arrived  back  in 
Hawaii  from  her  visit  to  her  sister  up  in  the  States, 
and  here  I  was,  the  veritable  duck.  Oh,  I  fell  into 
a  pleasant  path  there,  all  right.  I  liked  the  lotus- 
eating  game  down  there  so  much  that  when  my 
boss's  wife's  pretty  sister  came  along  for  a  visit  on 
the  coffee  ranch  a  couple  of  months  later,  and  I 
married  her  three  months  later  on,  I  hated  to  give 
up  my  job,  but  the  boss  wanted  a  New  York  agent 
and  I  had  to  show  a  brother-in-lawy  spirit  by  tak 
ing  the  place. 

"  Which  is  why — the  smallness  of  the  globe — 
I'm  here  to-night,  benign  and  good,  reprobating 
evil  in  all  its  forms " 

Here  the  Chief  Ex-Tank's  gavel  fell,  and  the 
meeting  adjourned,  cutting  off  Hoodoo  Thirteen's 
reprobation  of  evil  in  its  flower. 


TALE  THE  SEVENTEENTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  8  HATH  A  GOOD  WORD 
FOR  YE  MUCH-MALIGNED  BURG,  COUNCIL 
BLUFFS 


TALE  THE  SEVENTEENTH 

WHEREIN     EX-TANK     NO.    8     HATH    A    GOOD    WORD 
FOR  YE  MUCH-MALIGNED  BURG,  COUNCIL  BLUFFS 

"  Now,  talking  about  towns,  Council  Bluffs  gets 
more  knocks  than  any  town  I  know  of,"  said  Ex- 
Tank  No.  8,  when  a  discussion  arose  on  the  sub 
ject  of  the  most  hopeless  cities  in  the  country  in 
which  to  go  broke.  u  But  I've  been  up  against 
worse  than  Council  Bluffs.  Council  Bluffs  is  a 
clammy  looker,  and  all  that,  but  there's  one  good 
thing  about  it  :  they  don't  run  you  in  out  there  if 
you  strike  the  place  in  the  dead  of  winter  without 
an  overcoat.  The  constables  just  look  you  over, 
and  if  you  don't  make  the  mistake  of  shivering, 
and  just  slide  along  as  if  you  never  wore  an  over 
coat  in  your  life,  and  wouldn't  wear  a  sealskin 
blanket  if  you  had  one,  they  don't  chase  you. 
This  thing  of  being  compelled  to  dodge  cops,  as 
you  have  to  do  in  a  good  many  towns  I  could  men 
tion,  simply  because  you've  left  the  overcoat  in  the 
last  town  back,  done  up  with  camphor  balls,  is  not 
what  it's  cracked  up  to  be,  and  that's  why  I  give 
265 


266        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Council  Bluffs  what's  coming  to  it  in  this  little 
matter  of  detail.  But  that's  not  all,  either.  I 
won  out  once  in  Council  Bluffs,  and " 

"  I  v/ould  warn  No.  8,"  interposed  Ex-Tank 
No.  7,  the  parliamentarian  and  kicker,  rising, 
"  that  none  but  truthful  statements  are  spread  upon 
the  records  of  this  organization,  and  that  this  out 
fit  has  no  sort  of  affiliation  whatever  with  the 
Harlem  Liars'  Club  ;  consequently,  in  making  such 
a  manifestly  impossible  statement  that  he  at  one 
time  won  out  in  Council  Bluffs,  No.  8  is  guilty 
of " 

"Point  not  sustained,"  interrupted  the  Chief 
Ex-Tank.  u  Any  man  who  can  find  himself  and 
win  out  in  Chicago,  as  our  records  prove  No.  8  to 
have  done,  is  capable  of  landing  right  even  in 
Council  Bluffs,  insurmountable  as  the  difficulty  of 
such  an  undertaking  would  seem.  No.  8  will 
proceed." 

u  Oh,  it  wasn't  so  hard,"  resumed  No.  8.  "  I 
don't  exactly  understand  how  it  was  that  my  ticket 
read  to  Council  Bluffs  and  not  across  the  bridge  to 
Omaha.  I  don't  remember  how  I  got  that  ticket 
in  Chicago  anyhow.  After  I  got  twelve  dollars  and 
a  ticket  on  the  overcoat  way  down  on  South  Clark 
street  I  remembered  figuring  it  out  that  Omaha  would 
be  a  pretty  good  place  to  hit  up  next,  but  somehow 


TALE  THE  SEVENTEENTH       267 

or  another  I  didn't  get  my  money  down  right  in  the 
scalper's  office  where  I  got  the  ticket,  so  that  the 
conductor  ditched  me  at  Council  Bluffs  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  It  was  early  in  January,  and 
Council  Bluffs  was  covered  up  with  a  couple  of 
feet  of  snow.  I  was  asleep  in  the  smoker  when 
the  conductor  came  along  and  gave  me  the  shoulder 
hunch  and  yelled,  '  Council  Bluffs — this  is  where 
you  fall  off,'  at  me,  and  that  was  the  first  I  knew 
that  I  wasn't  booked  any  further  than  Council 
Bluffs.  In  stepping  off  the  train  I  slipped  and  fell 
on  the  ice,  and  I  came  down  on  the  pint  bottle 
that  I  had  in  my  rear  right-hand  pocket.  Gentle 
men,  that  was  the  bitterest  moment  of  my  life.  I 
do  not  refer  to  the  broken  particles  of  glass  that 
adhered  to  and  penetrated  me ;  but  to  be  deposited 
at  Council  Bluffs  at  four  of  the  clock  on  a  mid 
winter  morning  with  two  feet  of  snow  on  the 
ground  and  nary  the  price  in  your  clothes,  and  then 
to  have  a  whole  carefully  nursed  pint  go  smash  on 
you — well,  I  simply  submit  it  to  the  club  if  that 
wasn't  harder'n  wrought  nails." 

A  murmur  of  sympathy  ran  around  the  room. 

"  It  was  darker  than  ink  when  I  picked  myself 
up  and  tried  to  look  around,"  resumed  No.  8, 
"  and  still  snowing.  I  missed  my  overcoat  a  lot. 
There  wasn't  a  soul  at  the  station,  and  the  waiting- 


268        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

rooms  were  locked  up  tight.  I  looked  through  the 
waiting-room  windows  and  saw  a  big  baseburner, 
red-hot  all  around  the  bottom,  standing  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  room ;  but  its  heat  wasn't  for  me. 
When  my  train  pulled  out  and  left  me  standing 
there  all  alone  in  the  snow,  overcoatless,  with  thin 
summer  russet  shoes  on,  and  a  thirst  that,  up  to 
that  hour,  had  been  plenteously  assuaged  for  fully 
three  weeks  previously — well,  I  was  almost  sorry 
that  I  had  not  been  good.  I  might  even  venture 
to  say  that,  upon  mentally  turning  over  parts  of  my 
past  career,  I  almost  found  myself  deficient  in 
some  few  respects.  I  had  to  keep  a-moving  or 
freeze  to  death,  and  so  I  struck  up  town.  I  had 
to  make  the  first  track  in  the  snow  myself,  and  it 
wasn't  easy  walking.  Now,  it  was  pretty  cold, 
and  I  remembered  that  my  underwear  wasn't 
particularly  warm.  I  got  a  short,  grisly  chuckle, 
anyhow,  out  of  that  suit  of  underwear  I  had  on 
when  I  thought  about  it.  It  was  silk,  and  it  had 
cost  me  forty  dollars.  I  had  got  four  suits  of  it 
while  I  was  doing  my  eight  months'  sober  act  in 
Chicago  and  on  velvet,  and  I  didn't  know  what  had 
become  of  the  other  three  suits.  The  grim  humor 
of  the  blooming  idea  got  a  ghastly  laugh  out  of  me 
even  as  I  ploughed  along  through  the  snow  that 
black  morning  in  Council  Bluffs. 


TALE  THE  SEVENTEENTH       269 

"  The  first  gleam  of  light  I  caught  sight  of  came 
from  a  couple  of  oil  lamps  in  a  corner  rum  factory 
that  was  just  opening  up  at  about  five  oclock.  I 
didn't  have  the  dime,  but  I  went  in,  anyhow. 
There  was  a  young  fellow  with  a  good-natured 
mug  starting  the  ball  a-rolling  behind  the  bar.  He 
looked  me  over  when  I  walked  in  and  over  to  the 
stove.  At  that  I  guess  I  must  have  been  a  good 
deal  of  an  apparition  to  him.  I  had  on  a  black 
cutaway  coat,  worsted  trousers,  the  summer  rus 
sets  and  a  black  derby,  and  I  had  about  three 
inches  of  snow  all  over  me. 

"'Been  doin'  a  job?'  the  young  fellow  behind 
the  bar  asked  me. 

u  'Job  ? '  said  I,  for  I  didn't  understand  him  ex 
actly,  being  a  heap  dazed  with  the  cold  and  things. 

"  '  Where  did  you  leave  your  tools  ? '  he  asked, 
and  then  I  got  next  to  his  meaning.  I  told  him  I 
hadn't  got  around  to  the  cracking  game  yet. 

" '  You  look  like  you'd  been  left  at  the  post,  at 
that,'  he  said  consolingly,  and  then  I  told  him  I 
had  just  got  in. 

" '  Nice  place,  when  you  say  it  fast — the  BlufFs 
— like  hell,  ain't  it  ? '  he  said,  and  I  soon  found 
out  that  he  was  from  Chicago. 

" '  Have  a  few,'  he  said  then,  showing  up  a  tall 
bottle,  and  when  I  told  him  I  wasn't  buying,  he 


270        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

said  that  he  hadn't  supposed  I  was,  and  passed  the 
bottle  up  anyhow.  Decent  duck,  wasn't  he  ? 
Then  he  went  to  the  back  room  and  cooked  his 
breakfast  of  steak,  fried  eggs  and  potatoes,  and  in 
vited  me  to  jump  at  it  with  him.  If  any  member 
can  name  a  town  where  he  got  better  treatment 
than  this  that  I  had  chucked  at  me  from  the  go 
off  at  poor  old  Council  Bluffs,  it's  up  to  him  to 
spell  it  out. 

"  By  the  time  I  got  through  with  that  breakfast 
I  had  reconsidered  my  vague  idea  of  going  down  to 
the  Missouri  and  hopping  in  between  ice  floes.  I 
was  about  ready  to  go  out  and  take  a  walk  around 
— it  was  then  long  after  daylight — when  a  cus 
tomer  came  in.  He  and  my  friend  the  barkeep 
got  into  a  bit  of  talk  in  the  back  room,  and  then 
the  customer  came  out  and  asked  me  if  I  wanted  a 
couple  of  days'  work.  He  was  the  leading  printer 
of  the  town,  and  he  had  a  lot  of  new  calendars  that 
he  wanted  to  have  distributed  around.  I  took  the 
job  on  the  spot.  He  took  me  up  to  his  printing 
shop,  and  picked  a  pretty  good  Irish  frieze  ulster 
off  a  hook  in  his  office. 

" '  This  is  my  No.  2  blanket,'  he  said  to  me, 
'but  I  don't  wear  it  any.  Put  it  on.  If  it  fits  you 
it's  yours,  if  you  want  it.' 

"  I   started   out   with  a  bunch  of  the  calendars 


TALE  THE  SEVENTEENTH        271 

under  my  arm  and  put  in  a  whacking  day's  work. 
The  printer  gave  me  two  dollars  that  night.  I  got 
a  room  for  a  half  and  a  meal  for  two  bits,  and  had 
one  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  velvet.  The  rum 
was  cut  out,  for  it  was  up  to  me  to  turn  a  win-out 
trick  then.  I  finished  the  calendar-distributing  job 
the  next  day,  and  got  another  two  dollars.  The 
printer  asked  me  what  I  was  going  to  do. 

"cWell,  I'll  tell  you,'  he  said,  'there's  one  of 
these  here  travelling  mesmerist  fakirs  here  that  I've 
printed  a  lot  of  bills  for,  and  he  wants  them  scat 
tered  around  right.  He's  going  to  give  his  show 
at  the  hall  here  to  night.  Want  to  stack  up 
against  him  ? ' 

u  I  met  the  long-bearded  mesmerist  and  made  a 
three  dollar  arrangement  with  him  to  scatter  a 
couple  of  thousand  handbills  over  the  town. 
When  I  went  to  him  that  night  to  get  my  three 
dollars — it  was  just  before  the  show  was  to  begin 
and  the  hall  was  rapidly  filling  up — the  mesmerist 
looked  me  over  carefully  as  he  handed  me  my  pay. 
Then  he  told  me  that  his  chief  assistant  had  gone 
off  to  Omaha  on  a  toot  and  asked  me  if  I  thought 
I  could  go  on  and  do  anything  as  a  mesmerist's 
helper.  Of  course  I  could. 

" '  I'm  going  to  fire  that  fellow,  anyhow,'  the 
mesmerist  told  me.  '  He's  a  good  helper,  and, 


272        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

confidentially,  between  you  and  me,  almost  as  good 
a  con.  man  as  I  am  myself,  but  he's  getting  too 
chesty,  and  he's  untrustworthy  besides.  If  you 
pan  out  any  to-night  maybe  I'll  engage  you  right 
along.  Can  you  play  any  stringed  instrument  ?  " 

"  I  told  him  that  the  banjo  and  guitar  were  my 
particular  graft,  and  this  delighted  him.  So  I  went 
to  one  of  the  dressing-rooms,  stripped,  and  put  on 
the  gutta  percha  undersuit  that  mesmerists'  assist 
ants  wear  to  protect  their  hides  from  the  pins  and 
needles  that  are  stuck  into  them,  and  resumed  my 
clothes  while  the  mesmerist  sat  and  gave  me  direc 
tions  as  to  what  I  was  to  do. 

"  That  was  a  hot  night's  work,  but  I  don't  think 
I  depart  from  the  truth  when  I  state  that  I  made 
an  emphatic  hit  both  with  the  audience  and  the 
mesmerist,  who  was  a  pretty  smooth  old  guy.  All 
I  had  to  do  was  to  act  dense  and  obtuse  before  I 
was  plunged  into  the  hypnotic  trance,  and  then  to 
liven  up  and  do  whatever  the  mesmerist  told  me 
to  do.  The  worst  end  of  it  was  the  onions,  turnips 
and  candles  that  I  had  to  eat  with  apparent  relish, 
and  the  kerosene  oil  that  I  had  to  swallow  with  the 
gusto  of  a  hypnotized  man.  I  also  found  that  my 
gutta  percha  suit  was  vulnerable  in  two  or  three 
places,  especially  when  big  yaps  from  the  audience 
borrowed  hatpins  from  their  girls  and  prodded  me 


TALE  THE  SEVENTEENTH        273 

with  them.  I  managed  to  get  through  this  end  of 
it  without  giving  the  snap  away,  however,  and  the 
mesmerist  warmed  up  to  me  a  heap  as  the  show 
went  on.  When,  after  I  had  finished  a  candle- 
chewing  performance  and  he  snapped  me  behind 
the  ear  and  brought  me  to,  he  asked  me  if  I  could 
play  any  musical  instrument,  all  I  had  to  do  was 
to  look  yokelish  and  say  no.  Then  he  Svengalied 
me  again  and  handed  me  a  banjo.  I  began  to  rat 
tle  off  'The  Marriage  Bells  Are  A-Ringing,'  and 
this  like  to  have  driven  the  Council  Bluffers  in  the 
audience  wild  with  enthusiasm.  After  I  had 
played  a  repertoire  of  banjo  music  under  the  hyp 
notic  influence  the  mesmerist  handed  me  a  guitar 
and  asked  me  if  I  could  do  anything  with  that ; 
this,  after  he  had  snapped  me  out  of  my  banjo- 
playing  trance.  I  did  the  sheepish  act  over  again 
all  right,  and  then,  when  he  had  put  me  into  a 
trance  some  more  and  handed  me  the  guitar  I 
went  at  it  and  played  c  Silvery  Waves,'  with  varia 
tions,  and  then  sang  '  Down  On  the  Farm,'  with 
accompaniment.  Then  the  mesmerist  snapped  me 
awake  and  I  shambled  down  among  the  audience 
and  resumed  my  part  of  looking  opaque  and  im 
becile. 

"After  the   show   the  mesmerist  beamed  upon 
me,  told  me  that  I  double  discounted  his  chief  as- 


274        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

sistant,  handed  me  a  five-dollar  bill,  and  told  me 
that  I  was  engaged  for  the  middle  Western  and 
Southern  circuit. 

"Win  out  in  Council  Bluffs?  I  left  Council 
Bluffs  wearing  bells  and  smoking  a  two-for-a- 
quarter  cigar,  and  a  month  later,  when  our  show 
was  down  in  Little  Rock,  the  oily  old  mesmerist 
fired  his  treasurer  and  installed  me  as  house- 
counter,  in  addition  to  my  duties  as  assistant  fakir. 
I  was  with  him  for  five  months,  and  when  I  quit 
him  in  New  Orleans  to  take  a  job  at  sheet-writing 
with  a  friend  of  mine  who  was  making  a  book  out 
at  the  Crescent  City  track  I  had  $1,600,  all  the 
gig-lamps  out  of  hock,  and  the  sassiest  gait  of  any 
man  within  fourteen  miles  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

"  Council  Bluffs  is  all  right  for  the  variety  show 
knockabout  people  to  abuse,  but  it's  an  ace  with 


TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  21  HURLETH  A  NOSE 
GAY  IN  THE  DIRECTION  OF  YE  CHIEF  EX- 
TANK 


TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH 

WHEREIN     EX-TANK     NO.     21    HURLETH  A  NOSEGAY 
IN  THE  DIRECTION  OF  YE  CHIEF  EX-TANK 

"  THE  last  time  a  bug-ward  got  me,"  remarked 
Ex-Tank  No.  18,  "  was  in  Milwaukee  in  the  sum 
mer  of  '91.  It  was  my  first  rap  at  Milwaukee. 
Don't  remember  how  I  got  to  Milwaukee  from 
Chicago,  but  it  must  have  been  by  freight,  on  a 
boat,  for  when  I  was  turned  loose  from  the  bug- 
ward  I  found,  on  assuming  the  wardrobe  that  Iliad 
on  when  they  got  me,  that  the  whole  back  of  my 
light  cutaway  coat  was  an  archery  target ;  so  I  fig 
ured  it  that  I  must  ha'  bunked  on  a  coil  of  greased 
rope  on  a  boat,  for  the  coat  was  all  right,  to  the 
best  of  my  remembrance,  the  last  time  I  put  it  on 
in  Chicago. 

"  When  I  came  to  in  the  ward  I  noticed  the 
fellow  holding  down  the  next  bunk  on  my  right 
grinning  at  me  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye. 

"  '  Funny,  ain't  I  ? '   said  I  sarcastically. 

"  He  was  a  good-looking  chap  and  he  broke  into 
such  a  chuckle  when  I  spoke  that  I  couldn't  help 
but  grin  along  with  him. 

277 


278        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

" c  It's  this,'  said  he,  stopping  his  chuckle  for  a 
minute.  c  You  were  solemnly  telling  me  for  two 
hours  last  night  that  there  was  a  little  devil  of  a 
Caliban  sitting  on  the  footboard  of  your  bunk  and 
playing  the  banjo.  So  when  you  came  to  this  time 
I  was  waiting  for  you  to  heave  something  at  the 
imp,'  and  he  gave  me  the  chuckle  again. 

"  'Don't  remember  ever  having  seen  you  before,' 
I  told  him.  c  How  long  you  been  in  ? ' 

u  *  I  pass,'  said  he.  '  Got  my  head  back  yester 
day  morning.  The  piano-mover  in  charge  of  the 
ward  tells  me  this  is  Milwaukee.  Milwaukee's  a 
new  one  on  me.  Chicago's  the  last  I  know  of  it.' 

"  That  struck  me  as  a  coincidence.  The  whole 
game  after  Chicago  was  a  vacuum  to  me. 

"  '  You're  from  the  only  town,  ain't  you  ? '  he 
asked  me.  It's  a  queer  thing  how  one  New  Yorker 
knows  another  wherever  he  sees  him.  I  knew  that 
that  fellow  was  a  New  Yorker,  too,  as  soon  as  I 
heard  him  talk. 

"  '  Yep,'  I  told  him.  '  So  are  you,'  and  he  ac 
knowledged  it. 

"  '  They'll  be  turning  us  loose  about  this  after 
noon,'  he  said.  '  Where  are  you  going  to  went  ? ' 

"  '  Ask  me  easy  ones,'  I  said  to  him. 

"  c  Don't  you  worry,'  said  he.  c  We're  on  vel 
vet.  I've  got  three  dollars.  Ward  keeper  told  me 


TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH         279 

yesterday  they  found  that  on  me  when  I  came  in.' 

"  Here  I  was  up  against  a  townsman  with  un 
told  wealth  ! 

"  c  No  more  of  the  red  stuff? '  said  I,  inquiringly. 

"'Not  any/  said  he.  'I'm  through.  The 
next  time  I  want  to  see  mastodons  I'll  smoke  hop. 
But  no  more  of  the  red.' 

"  As  my  bunkie  predicted,  we  were  turned  loose 
from  the  bug-ward  that  afternoon.  I  got  a  rebate 
of  $1.95  that  had  been  found  on  me.  Togged  out, 
my  bunkie  looked  all  right.  My  drawback  was  the 
coat  with  the  archery  target  on  the  back.  I  re 
placed  that  by  a  half-dollar  seersucker  coat.  Then 
we  went  and  got  shaved.  When  we  got  outside 
the  barber  shop  my  pal  struck  an  attitude. 

" '  Now,  here's  the  situation,'  said  he  deliber 
ately.  l  It's  now  July,  and  we  both  want  to  get 
back  to  New  York  without  any  telegraphing  to  the 
old  man  or  anything  like  that,  by  October  or  No 
vember,  don't  we  ?  All  right.  It's  a  case  of  work 
ing  our  way  back,  and  not  on  the  first  car  back  of 
the  engine,  either.  I've  got  to  get  back  with  the 
bells  on — I  don't  play  tag  and  hi  spy  with  myself 
in  New  York,  but  use  the  rest  of  the  country  for 
that  purpose — and  so  do  you.  Can  see  by  the  cut 
of  your  jib  that  when  you  go  back  you  want  to  go 
back  right.  Now,  neither  of  us  has  got  the  front 


28o         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

to  con.  people  here  in  Milwaukee  to  give  us  the 
kind  of  work  we  can  do,  and  I  don't  want  any 
more  Milwaukee,  anyhow.  Neither  do  you. 
Well,  there  are  two  grafts  in  front  of  us.  We  can 
either  take  the  dough  we've  got  and  run  up  to  Oco- 
nomowoc  or  Waukesha,  a  couple  of  summer  re 
sorts  I've  heard  about  around  this  way,  and  get  jobs 
hashin' — table  waiters  are  always  wanted  at  summer 
resorts.  That  'ud  keep  us  going  until  we  had  a 
think  about  the  next  move.  Or  we  can  go  out  to 
where  the  circus  performance  is  being  given  here — 
here  comes  the  parade  now — and  strike  'em  for 
some  kind  of  a  job,  just  to  get  out  of  town.  Name 
your  choice/ 

"  '  Circus/  said  I. 

" c  You  win/  said  he,  and  we  got  on  a  car  and 
went  out  to  the  circus  grounds.  Our  luck  was 
with  us.  The  circus  had  got  mixed  up  in  a  c  Hey, 
Rube  ! '  battle  a  couple  of  towns  up  the  line  and  a 
lot  of  broken-headed  tentmen  had  to  be  left  behind. 
The  boss  tentman  took  us  on.  He  saw  that  we 
were  both  big  men  and  he  knew  that  he'd  get  work 
out  of  us.  He  did.  You  bet  he  did.  I  had  done 
my  quota  of  win-outs  before  that,  but  for  a  hard 
game  that  was  the  limit.  But  I  thought  afterward, 
and  so  did  my  pal,  that  it  was  the  best  thing  that 
could  have  happened  to  us.  We  had  to  work  like 


TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH         281 

dogs,  but  the  work  put  us  on  our  feet  physically 
after  the  damidiocy  that  had  landed  us  in  the  Mil 
waukee  bug-ward.  Inside  of  a  week  after  we  joined 
the  show  we  were  both  as  strong  as  grizzlies  and 
knocking  the  spots  off  every  layout  that  came  be 
fore  us  in  the  grub  tent.  In  Madison  I  ran  into  a 
piece  of  luck.  The  show  was  all  set  and  I  was 
snoozing  under  a  flap  while  the  afternoon  crowd 
came  in,  when  a  lot  of  yelling  and  excitement  woke 
me  up.  I  saw  a  man  running  when  I  got  on  my 
feet  and  a  crowd  after  him.  The  man  being  pur 
sued  was  a  pickpocket  and  he  had  just  pinched  a 
farmer's  wallet.  I  was  pretty  good  at  the  cross 
country  game  when  I  was  at  school  back  this  way 
and  I  lit  out  after  the  pickpocket.  He  was  good 
himself,  but  I  wore  him  down  before  he  had  gone 
three-quarters  of  a  mile.  He  was  all  out  and  so  I 
had  no  trouble  nabbing  him.  He  tried  to  throw 
the  wallet  away  without  my  seeing  him,  but  I  got 
it.  By  that  time  the  cops  were  up  to  us  and  the 
farmer  whose  roll  had  been  pinched.  The  old  jay 
was  so  glad  to  get  his  money  back  that  he  peeled 
fifty  dollars  off  the  big  roll  inside  the  pocketbook 
and  handed  it  to  me. 

" '  We're  pretty  strong  to  work,'  I  said  to  my 
pal  when  I  showed  him  the  fifty  dollars. 

u '  We  can  go  into  business  at  an  easy  graft,'  he 


282      TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

replied.  He  certainly  had  a  head  on  him.  'The 
pink  lemonade  duck  had  to  go  to  a  hospital  this 
morning  with  the  rheumatism.  Buy  him  out  and 
we'll  run  the  peanut  and  pink  lemonade  business 
for  the  show.' 

"  I  took  his  tip,  chased  to  the  hospital,  saw  the 
pink  lemonade  man  and  bought  his  layout  for  the 
fifty  dollars.  The  boss  tentman  was  sore  about  our 
passing  up  our  jobs  with  him,  but  we  had  somehow 
or  another  made  a  hit  with  him  and  he  let  us  go 
after  a  few  kicks.  I  peddled  the  lemonade  and  the 
peanuts  from  behind  the  stand  in  the  menagerie 
tent  and  my  pal  carried  the  lemonade  around  the 
tent  when  the  show  was  on.  Even  after  coughing 
up  a  big  bunch  of  our  daily  rake-off  to  the  circus 
proprietor  for  the  privilege  we  made  good  money. 
I  shared  the  take-in  equally  with  my  pal.  Both 
of  us  actually  enjoyed  the  work.  It  was  pretty  hot 
one  night  in  Peoria,  three  weeks  after  we  joined 
the  show. 

"'Let's  just  have  one  proper  drink  and  then 
turn  in,'  said  I  to  my  pardncr.  The  show  was 
going  to  exhibit  another  day  in  Peoria. 

"'Just  what  I  was  thinking,'  said  he,  and  we 
did.  I  had  about  $120  in  my  clothes  and  he  had 
seventy  or  eighty  dollars.  That  was  the  finish  of 
our  peanut  and  pink  lemonade  business-  Three 


TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH         283 

days  later,  when  we  woke  up  in  Chicago,  we  tele 
graphed  to  the  circus  proprietor  in  East  St.  Louis 
about  it,  and  he  wired  us  this  reply : 

" c  You're  scratched.  Another  man  has  the 
privilege.' 

"  By  that  time  we  had  about  thirty  dollars  left 
between  us. 

" c  We'll  cut  out  the  rum  and  take  a  Turkish 
bath,'  said  my  pardner  when  the  telegram  told  us 
that  we  were  out  of  business.  "Then  we'll  go 
into  the  advertising  stereopticon  business.' 

"  That  was  a  new  proposition  on  me,  but  by 
that  time  I  had  a  heap  of  respect  for  my  pal's 
acumen  during  his  lucid  intervals.  When  we 
were  spread  out  on  the  drying  couches  in  the 
Turkish  bath  layout  he  opened  up. 

" '  Among  the  games  which  haven't  been  worked 
to  a  finish  in  this  town,'  said  he,  c  are  the  night 
pictures  on  the  big  boards.  I  don't  know  why, 
but  they  haven't.  I  was  sober  in  this  town  for 
fully  three  nights  a  few  months  ago,  and  was  all 
over  the  downtown  region,  and  I  didn't  see  a  single 
advertising  stereopticon  working.  I'm  going  to 
start  a  plant.  We've  got  about  twenty-five  dollars, 
and  that'll  keep  us  going  until  we  get  this  thing 
running.  We've  got  to  spend  about  a  week  in 
conning  big  merchants  to  give  us  their  advertising, 


284        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

and  this  time  we've  got  front  enough  to  be  able  to 
show  up  before  them  and  give  'em  talks.  When 
we  get  enough  advertising  to  make  a  showing,  we 
can  take  our  contracts  to  the  carpenter  and  the 
painter,  and  they'll  put  up  three  big  boards  for  us 
on  the  tops  of  whatever  buildings  we  get  the 
privilege  of  using.  Likewise,  the  contracts'll 
stand  off  the  stereopticon  people  until  the  money 
begins  to  come  in,  which  will  be,  in  part,  when  we 
get  the  plant  rigged  and  in  order.  See  ? ' 

" '  Stop  fooling  with  that  hop-toi,'  I  told  him. 
'This  thing  looks  too  easy.' 

"Nevertheless,  I  didn't  really  see  any  reason 
why  the  thing  shouldn't  go  through.  We  got 
a  boarding-house  when  we  left  the  Turkish  bath, 
and  then,  we  both  suddenly  remembered  that  we 
each  had  in  our  clothes  a  bunch  of  pawn  tickets  on 
stuff  that  we  had  soaked  in  Chicago  before  we  had 
got  to  Milwaukee.  We  thought  the  tickets  could 
be  squeezed  some  and  we  were  right.  He  got 
thirty  dollars  more  on  his  tickets  and  I  squeezed 
mine  for  forty  dollars. 

"c  Let's  cut  now  for  New  York,'  I  said  to  him. 
'We've  got  the  price.' 

" '  Not  on  your  life,'  said  he.  '  I'm  going  to 
wear  all  the  stuff  these  tickets  call  for  when  I  get 
into  New  York.' 


TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH         285 

"  The  next  day  we  took  separate  routes  to  get 
stereopticon  advertising.  We  found  it  something 
easy.  It  was  a  novelty  in  Chicago  then,  and  we 
didn't  get  one  turn-down  out  of  five  advertisers 
we  struck.  Inside  of  a  week  we  had  as  much 
stuff  as  we  could  handle  on  three  boards.  Then 
we  got  the  privilege  to  erect  boards  and  working 
gear  on  three  of  the  most  prominent  buildings  in 
downtown  Chicago  for  a  small  percentage  of  the 
rake-off,  and  we  only  had  to  flash  our  contracts  on 
the  stereopticon  people  to  get  three  machines  and 
the  men  to  manipulate  them. 

"We  made  money  hand  over  fist,  got  all  the 
gig-lamps  out  of  hock,  and  were  settling  down  to 
the  affluence  of  bloated  bondholders,  all  in  less 
than  three  weeks,  when  a  big  wind  came  up  and 
blew  all  three  of  our  boards  down  and  wrecked 
the  stereopticons,  which  we  had  started  to  pay  for. 
We  were  fully  $300  to  the  good,  outside  of  the 
jewellry  we'd  redeemed,  when  this  happened. 

"  Come  on,  let's  go  to  New  York/  said  my 
pardner  when  we  were  surveying  the  wrecks.  I 
agreed,  and  with  all  kinds  of  a  front,  money  and 
all  the  other  looks  of  fair-haired  boys — -just  as  we 
intended  to  be  before  we  started  for  New  York — 
we  took  the  train.  We  went  by  way  of  Detroit, 
in  a  drawing-room  car.  I  don't  know  how  it  was 


286         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

that  we  didn't  happen  to  get  by  Detroit,  but  we 
didn't.  We  only  took  a  few  on  the  train,  but  we 
woke  up  in  the  Russell  House  in  Detroit  for  all 
that.  We  had  gone  to  sleep  in  the  same  room 
with  our  plug  hats  on.  We  woke  up  about  the 
same  time.  We  both  reached  for  the  button 
simultaneously.  Well,  it  was  a  pretty  swift  week 
after  that  in  Detroit,  but  it  didn't  cost  us  more  than 
$200,  so  that  when  we  decided  to  call  it  off  we 
still  had  $100  left,  nothing  in  hock  and  through 
tickets  to  New  York. 

u  c  A  hundred's  not  enough  to  land  in  New 
York  with,'  said  my  pardner.  c  We'll  have  to  pick 
up  a  few  more  here.' 

" c  How  we  going  to  do  it  ? '  I  asked  him. 

" c  Well,'  he  said,  '  when  I  lost  you  the  other 
night  I  got  to  talking  with  a  busted  aeronaut  down 
at  the  bar.  He's  got  a  big  balloon,  but  he  isn't 
good  for  the  price  to  buy  gas  to  fill  it.  I've  got 
his  address.  The  Michigan  State  Fair's  going  to 
happen  here  next  week.  I'm  going  to  rent  that 
balloon,  fill  'er  up  with  gas,  tie  'er  to  a  stake  out 
on  the  fair  grounds,  have  this  busted  high-flyer 
run  the  thing  for  wages  and  ride  the  hayseeds  in  a 
captive  balloon  for  a  quarter  a  head.  It's  a  mint. 
The  fair'll  last  a  week  and  we'll  clear  up  fifty 
dollars  a  day,  easy.  Then  we  can  roll  into  New 


TALE  THE  EIGHTEENTH         287 

York  and  tell  'em  that  we've  just  been  away  for  a 
few  months  buying  railroads  out  West.' 

"That  went  through,  too,  just  as  he  said  it 
would.  Instead,  however,  of  cleaning  up  fifty 
dollars  a  day  on  a  game,  we  pulled  down  close  to 
$100  a  day,  after  paying  the  poor  devil  of  an 
aeronaut  liberally  for  his  end  of  it.  We  each  had 
$200  and  over  in  our  clothes  when,  at  the  wind-up 
of  the  State  fair,  we  started  for  the  station  to  take 
the  New  York  express.  On  the  way  down  my 
pal,  passing  by  a  big  gin  mill,  said  to  me  :  c  Come 
on  in.' 

"  I  was  going  to  demur,  and  demur  hard,  but 
he  gave  me  a  queer  look  out  of  the  corners  of  his 
eyes. 

"'Let's  have  a  couple  of  quart  bottles  of  wine/ 
said  he  to  the  waiter  when  we  sat  down  at  a 
table. 

"  The  waiter  brought  them. 

cttl  just  want  to  give  this  stuff  the  laugh  for 
once,'  said  he,  grasping  one  of  the  bottles  by  the 
base  of  it.  '  It  has  been  giving  me  the  merry  hoot 
for  a  long  time  now.  It  has  been  man-handling 
and  punishing  me  for  a  good  twelve  years.  It  has 
been  luring  me  with  a  cheap  siren  song  and  then 
pouncing  on  me  with  mirthful  yelps  of  victory. 
Well,  here's  where  I  pass  it  up,  not  for  a  while, 


288        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

but  until  hell  freezes  over,'  and  he  deliberately 
knocked  the  neck  off  the  bottle  and  permitted  the 
upturned  contents  to  race  and  splutter  into  the 
spitoon  at  his  side. 

"  He  nodded  to  me  to  follow  suit,  and  I  did.  I 
was  dead  willing,  for  I  had  some  memories,  too. 

"That's  how  I  got  from  a  bug-ward  in  Mil 
waukee  to  New  York  in  the  summer  and  fall  of 
'91,  and  all  the  verification  I  need  for  the  narrative 
is  the  blushing  countenance  of  our  respected  Chief 
Ex-Tank,  who  was — and  is — my  pardner." 

The  Chief  Ex-Tank  rose  and  bowed  amid 
cheers  and  the  meeting  adjourned. 


TALE  THE  NINETEENTH 


IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  n  DWELLS  UPON  THE 
MISDIRECTED  ZEAL  OF  YE  CHICAGO  SLEUTH 


TALE  THE  NINETEENTH 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.    1 1   DWELLS  UPON  THE  MIS 
DIRECTED  ZEAL  OF  YE  CHICAGO  SLEUTH 

"  ANYHOW,  I  needed  one  so  bad  that  morning," 
said  Ex-Tank  No.  1 1  of  the  Harlem  Club  of  For 
mer  Alcoholic  Degenerates,  "  that  I  got  to  talking 
to  myself  about  how  bad  I  needed  it. 

" c  It  boots  not,'  said  I  to  myself,  as  I  walked 
along  Michigan  avenue  about  seven  o'clock  on  a 
hot  sunshiny  morning — the  World's  Fair  was  only 
a  couple  of  months  old  then ;  '  it  doesn't  effect 
the  situation  at  all  that  I  haven't  the  price  of  the 
pint  that  I  need.  I'm  going  to  have  the  pint  any 
how.  The  price  is  the  sordid,  squalid  end  of  it, 
anyway.  When  a  man's  in  a  desert  and  comes  to 
a  spring  when  he's  about  to  cash  in  for  the  want 
of  a  drink,  does  he  dig  into  his  clothes  to  see  if 
he's  got  the  price  ?  Nay,  forsooth.  I'm  in  a 
desert.  I  won't  dig,  because  I  know  where  I 
stand  without  digging.  Nevertheless,  I'll  have  the 
pint.' 

u  The  night  before  I  had  blown  in  my  last 
291 


292       TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

eighteen  dollars  on  the  Midway.  The  eighteen 
dollars  was  the  skeleton  of  the  $800  with  which  I 
had  struck  Chicago  two  weeks  before.  It  doesn't 
make  any  difference  where  the  other  $782  went. 

/  •"/ 

Here  I  was  on  Michigan  avenue,  at  broad  day 
light,  under  the  hot  early  morning  sun,  after  having 
been  rudely  awakened  from  a  peaceful  slumber  in 
the  men's  waiting-room  of  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad,  minus  the  price  of  the  pint  which  I  so 
imperatively  required,  minus  the  price  even  of  one 
of  the  Chicago  washtubs  filled  with  the  malt  prod 
uct.  I  wore  a  light  grey  frock  suit,  with  a  top 
hat  to  match.  The  remainder  of  my  wardrobe 
was  in  a  State  street  hotel,  and  subject  to  redemp 
tion  only  upon  the  payment  of  heavy  salvage. 

" '  I  might,'  I  reflected,  c  go  down  the  bay  and 
do  the  reliever  act  with  this  raiment,  that  is  to  say, 
exchange  it  for  less  presumptuous  and  insistent  ap 
parel,  and  achieve  the  necessary  two  dollars  for  the 
pint  into  the  bargain.  But  that  would  necessitate 
a  walk  of  some  distance,  and  I  decline  to  walk.  I 
want  the  pint  right  now.' 

"  Wherefore,  I  walked  into  the  bar  of  one  of  the 
water-front  caravansaries.  The  spick-and-span 
bartender  was  just  opening  up.  I  approached  the 
bar,  patting  my  vest  affectionately  and  luxuriously. 

"  '  Maurice  — '  I  began. 


TALE  THE  NINETEENTH        293 

" '  How'd'je  guess  it  ? '  the    barkeep  asked  me. 

" '  Maurice/  said  I,  ponderously, c  have  you  got 
a  pint  of  the  Widdy,  dry,  in  cold  storage,  not  on 
ice,  but  carefully  tucked  away  in  the  frappe  com 
partment  ? ' 

"'It  is,  yes,'  said  the  barkeep.  'You  must've 
spent  the  night  over  the  dope  sheets.  That's  two 
winners  you've  picked  already/ 

"'  The  pint  is  mine,'  said  I.     'Decant  it.' 

"  Say,  who  was  the  thirsty  guy  who  wrote  about 
blushful  hippocrene  ?  He  must  have  been  jostled 
awake  in  the  men's  waiting-room  of  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad  in  Chicago,  at  seven  o'clock  on  a 
hot,  sunshiny  morning,  after  two  weeks  of  the 
mazarine  daze,  minus  the  price ;  otherwise  he 
couldn't  have  been  so  wise  to  the  meaning  of  a 
thirst.  That  pint  marked  an  epoch  in  my  career. 
Never,  before  or  since — oh,  well,  I  wake  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  yet,  and  catch  the  bouquet  of 
that  pint. 

" '  You  have  the  mate  to  this  one,  too,  haven't 
you,  Maurice  ? '  I  asked  the  barkeep. 

"  '  The  whole  family,'  said  he,  and  he  opened 
me  another  pint.  It  was  great,  that  pint,  too,  but 
the  first  was  the  ever-memorable  baby. 

" c  Well,'  said  I  to  myself,  after  I'd  got  away 
with  the  last  of  the  number  two  pint, '  here's  where 


294        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

I  get  the  bung  starter  or  the  arm  clutch.  But  it 
was  worth  the  money.' 

u '  Just  charge  it  up  to  Hogan,'  said  I,  jauntily, 
to  the  barkeep.  '  Put  the  check  on  ice.' 

" '  Sure,'  said  the  barkeep,  and  then  I  needed 
digitalis.  I'd  been  fixing  to  dodge  beneath  the 
bar,  and  he  said  '  Sure.'  I  looked  him  in  the 
eye  for  a  minute.  I  couldn't  exactly  under 
stand  it. 

" '  What  for  th'  rubberin'  ? '  he  asked  me. 

"  '  Your  complaisancy  overwhelms  me,'  said  I. 
'  How  do  you  know  you'll  ever  shake  hands  with 
that  four  dollars  ? ' 

"  c  Oh,  you've  bought  enough  basketfuls  here, 
pal,  to  make  you  good  for  the  fixtures  if  you  want 
'em,'  said  the  barkeep.  '  What's  the  matter ;  were 
you  sitting  into  an  all-kitty  game  last  night  ? ' 

"  Then  I  started  out,  refreshed,  but  wondering 
much.  I  hadn't  got  out  the  hotel  door  before 
I  felt  a  gentle  tap  on  my  left  shoulder.  I  wheeled 
around  and  gazed  into  the  lamps  of  a  cool-looking 
chap. 

"  '  Hello,  Burnham,'  said  he.  '  Trying  to  bluff 
it  out,  hey  ?  Where  were  you  keeping  yourself 
yesterday  ?  I  tried  all  the  covers,  but  you  were 
nix.  Of  course  you  don't  know  anything  about 
the  job,  hey,  chum  ?  But  it  had  all  your  thumb- 


TALE  THE  NINETEENTH        295 

prints,  at  that.  I  guess  you  were  there  or  there 
abouts.  Come  on  around,  and  I'll  talk  to  you.* 

" '  Say,'  said  I  to  the  cool-looking  duck,  '  you 
need  rest  and  quiet.  Burnham  ?  Is  that  the  first 
name  you  thought  of?  ' 

"  c  Ho  !  you're  springing  American  dialect,  hey, 
George  ?  Cut  out  your  English  drawl,  I  see. 
Well,  you  won't  do.  Come  on,  now.  Don't  try 
to  mix  me.  I'm  too  educated.' 

u  I  was  a  bit  warm  by  this  time. 

" 4  Look  here,  my  friend,'  said  I,  '  what  the 
devil  are  you  talking  about,  and  who  the  devil  do 
you  take  me  for  ?  ' 

u  Darned  if  he  didn't  put  his  hands  to  his  sides 
and  holler.  I  started  to  walk  away  in  disgust. 
Then  I  felt  a  grip  on  my  right  arm  that  would  have 
hauled  an  ice  wagon. 

"  4  Oh,  no,  Georgy,  don't  go  away,7  said  the 
cool-looking  proposition.  c  It's  too  early  in  the 
morning  to  play  tag,  anyhow.  Come  on  around, 
and  you  can  begin  to  patch  up  your  alibi  when  we 
get  there.' 

"  Well,  ten  minutes  later  I  was  sitting  on  a  bench 
in  a  cell  at  the  Harrison  Street  Station,  and  spend 
ing  mentally  the  $100,000  for  which  I  was  going 
to  sue  the  city  of  Chicago  for  false  imprison 
ment.  I  was  down  on  the  books  of  the  Harrison 


296        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Street  Station  as  George  Burnham,  English  second- 
story  man,  charged  with  pinching  $4,000  worth  of 
diamonds  and  other  precious  stones  at  a  swell 
Prairie  avenue  plant,  a  couple  of  evenings  before, 
while  the  family  were  at  dinner. 

" '  But  you  and  this  gum-shoe  sleuth  of  yours 
are  up  in  the  air/  I  said  to  the  desk  sergeant  when 
I  was  hauled  into  the  station.  '  You're  ballooning 
without  ballast.  I'm  no  George  Burnham,  nor 
George  anything  else.  I'm  a  New  York  idiot  who 
came  out  here  to  see  the  World's  Fair.  The  only 
thing  I  know  about  second-story  men  is  what  Mr. 
Byrnes  of  our  little  old  town  published  on  that  sub 
ject  in  his  book.  I  don't  like  to  have  people  get 
so  giddy  with  me.' 

"  l  Pretty  good  switch  he's  made  in  his  accent, 
hey,  sergeant  ?  '  the  detective  asked  the  sergeant. 
'  Got  it  down  pretty  pat,  hasn't  he  ?  But  you 
won't  do,  George,'  addressing  me.  'I'll  just  hunt 
through  you  some  and  show  you  up  to  yourself.' 

"  Then  he  searched  me.  I  didn't  have  a  scrap 
of  paper  in  my  clothes,  nor  anything  else. 

"  '  Did  a  strip  act,  and  thought  you'd  bluff  it  out, 
eh,  George?'  said  the  detective,  amiably.  'Oh, 
well,  it  was  your  job,  all  O.  K.,  and  you're  too 
good  an  old  lag  not  to  be  next  to  the  fact  that  I 
can  hitch  it  on  to  you.' 


TALE  THE  NINETEENTH        297 

"When  I  protested  to  the  sergeant  that  my  ar 
rest  was  an  outrage,  and  only  got  the  hoot,  I  knew 
there  was  no  use  trying  to  make  a  rough-house  of 
it,  with  a  whole  brigade  of  Swede  cops  sleeping  up 
stairs.  So  I  decided  to  take  it  as  it  came.  I  was 
sleepy,  anyhow,  and  I  thought  I  might  as  well  take 
a  little  nap  in  a  cell  as  anywhere  else.  So  I  sat  on 
the  bench  in  the  cell  for  a  while,  wondering  what 
New  York  lawyer  I'd  send  for  to  enter  suit  against 
Cook  county  for  unjustifiable  pinching,  when  I 
rolled  over  and  went  to  sleep. 

"  I  don't  know  how  long  I  slept,  but  it  must 
have  been  quite  a  while.  I  woke  up  suddenly  to 
the  music  of  hoarse  laughter,  and  there  was  my 
doppelganger  standing  before  me,  grinning,  with 
the  desk  sergeant  and  the  sleuth  who  had  arrested 
me  right  behind  him,  chuckling. 

u  c  Well,  if  they  ain't  ringers  for  each  other  you 
can  give  me  the  boots,'  the  detective  was  saying, 
and  they  looked  at  each  other  wonderingly.  They 
looked  at  each  other  only  about  a  sixteenth  of  a 
second,  but  it  was  long  enough.  The  man  who 
looked  like  me — his  resemblance  to  me  honestly 
was  something  scandalous,  and  he  had  my  make-up 
to  a  T — ,  frock  grey  suit,  top  hat  to  match,  and 
all,  the  man  who  looked  like  me  slipped  off  his 
right  cuff  with  the  quickness  of  thought  and  let  it 


298        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

fall  gently  into  my  hat,  that  was  lying,  bottom  up, 
on  the  bench  beside  me.  He  kept  right  on  grin 
ning  at  me  all  the  time.  Neither  of  the  officers 
saw  the  move  he  made  with  the  cuff. 

" '  Blimed  'f  th'  cove  don't  tike  after  me/  said 
Mr.  George  Burnham,  for  he  was  George,  all 
right.  '  Only  he  cawn't  be  called  so  bloomin' 
good-lookm'  as  I  am.' 

"  The  desk-sergeant  turned  me  loose  with  a 
whole  lot  of  apologies  then  and  there. 

" c  Case  of  mistaken  identity,  sir/  he  said,  '  that 
would  fool  the  best  of  us  ;  most  remarkable  case  of 
ringers  I  ever  saw  in  my  whole  service.  Trust 
you're  not  going  to  make  a  ruction  of  it  ? ' 

" '  Well,'  I  told  him,  *  I  could  use  a  million  dol 
lars  or  so  just  now,  and  this  town's  as  good  to  get 
it  out  of  as  any  other.' 

"  Then  I  picked  up  my  grey  top  hat,  with  Mr. 
George  Burnham's  cuff  still  in  it,  put  it  on  my 
head,  and  walked  out.  There's  nothing  doing  in 
the  way  of  damages  for  false  imprisonment  out  in 
Chicago,  for  all  the  citizens  are  pinched  out  there 
at  least  once  in  their  lives  on  suspicion  of  being 
footpads,  and  I  knew  that  I'd  have  to  take  my  sore 
ness  out  in  growling  to  myself  for  being  yanked 
into  a  cell  for  a  second-story  man.  But  if  I  hadn't 
made  some  such  a  bluff  to  the  sergeant  and  the  de- 


TALE  THE  NINETEENTH         299 

tective  they  might  have  thought  I  was  a  crook, 
sure  enough. 

"  It  was  night  when  I  was  turned  loose,  and  I 
walked  around  aimlessly,  feeling  pretty  hollow  and 
parched.  It  was  up  to  me  to  get  out  of  Chicago 
and  back  to  New  York  some  old  way.  I  paddled 
around,  keeping  awake  with  difficulty,  on  the  streets 
of  Chicago  all  that  night,  and  the  next  morning  I 
got  a  job  as  a  barker  on  South  State  street.  A 
smooth  geezer  from  this  little  place  was  exhibiting 
a  very  much  altogether  painting  of  '  Fatima,  the 
Odalisque,'  and  I  met  up  with  him  in  front  of  the 
shack  where  he  was  showing  the  picture  for  a 
quarter  a  throw.  I  had  certain  evidences  of  being 
up  against  it  printed  on  me,  and  he  engaged  me  to 
bark  for  the  painting  at  the  rate  of  ten  dollars  per 
week,  with  two  dollars  in  advance  for  immediate 
needs.  All  I  had  to  do  was  to  walk  up  and  down 
in  front  of  the  place,  say  '  See  the  beauteous  Fatima 
inside,'  in  a  deep  bass  voice,  every  three  seconds, 
and  point  inside  with  a  bamboo  cane.  Nice  graft, 
eh  ?  But  I  needed  the  price  of  a  scalped  ticket 
to  New  York,  and  I'd  have  carried  the  hod  to 
get  it. 

"  I  hadn't  had  my  hat  off  since  leaving  the  Har 
rison  Street  station,  but  it  was  pretty  warm  work 
barking  for  Fatima,  and  after  I'd  been  on  duty  for 


300        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

an  hour  or  so  I  reached  up  and  pulled  off  my  lid 
so's  I  could  mop  my  forehead.  As  I  pulled  off  the 
hat,  Mr.  George  Burnham's  cuff,  that  I  had  for 
gotten  all  about,  fell  to  the  sidewalk.  I  picked  it 
up,  and  saw  that  it  had  a  pencilled  scrawl  on  it, 
that  read  : 

"  '  Tell  Tuck  Rigley,  No. ,  Custom  House 

Place,  that  the  stuff  is  salted  as  usual.  G.  B.' 

"'Well,'  said  I  to  myself,  CI  may  get  down  to 
barking  for  Fatima,  but  I  guess  I  can  get  along 
without  knowing  Tuck  Rigley,  whatever  the  dick 
ens  kind  of  a  crook  he  may  be ;  and  if  I  gave  him 
this  I'd  be  an  accessory  after  the  fact  in  the  sec 
ond  story  game  myself/ 

u  Then  I  rammed  the  cuff  into  my  pocket  and 
went  on  telling  'em  what  a  bird  Fatima,  inside, 
was.  Ten  minutes  later  a  pretty  well-togged  chap 
came  along,  swinging  a  cane,  and  I  noticed  that 
when  he  got  his  eyes  on  me  he  started  visibly,  and 
then  walked  around  me  and  took  me  in  from  vari 
ous  points  of  view. 

u '  You  must  like  me,  Bill,'  said  I,  and  he 
grinned  when  he  heard  my  voice,  which  he'd  only 
heard  before  in  basso  praise  of  the  beauties  of 
Fatima. 

" '  Your  th'  spit  o'  one  o'  me  pals,  that's  all,' 
said  the  chap  with  a  cockney  burr  in  his  speech. 


TALE  THE  NINETEENTH        301 

" '  Who  ?     George  Burnham  ?  *     I  asked  him. 

"  He  gave  me  the  eye  then  for  fair. 

" '  George,'  said  I,  '  if  he's  the  one  you  mean,  is 
cooling  off  at  the  Harrison  Street  station.' 

"cSo  I  heard,'  said  the  chap,  still  eyeing  me 
shrewdly.  There's  no  doubt  in  life  that  he  thought 
me  a  crook. 

" '  D'ye  happen  to  know  a  friend  of  his  named 
Rigley — Tuck  Rigley  ? '  I  asked  him,  just  out  of 
curiosity. 

"'That's  me,'  said  the  fellow.  'Say,  what's 
your  lay  r '  he  inquired,  coming  closer  to  me. 

"A  sudden  impulse  guided  my  hand  into  my 
pocket,  and  I  pulled  out  the  cuff  with  the  writing 
on  it  and  handed  it  to  Rigley,  telling  him  in  a  few 
words  how  I  happened  to  get  it.  The  thing  was 
addressed  to  the  man,  I  figured,  and  it  wasn't  par 
ticularly  up  to  me  to  withhold  it  from  him. 

" '  Blow  me  if  you  ain't  all  right,'  said  Mr.  Rig- 
ley,  '  and  you'll  get  your  bit  for  this.' 

"  '  Say,  look-a-here,'  I  started  to  say  to  him,  '  I 
want  you  to  understand  that  I'm  not — '  but 
Mr.  Rigley  had  by  that  time  stuffed  the  cuff  into 
his  pocket  and  was  tramping  down  the  street  as 
fast  as  his  legs  would  carry  him,  swinging  his  cane 
jauntily. 

"  Then  I  resumed  my  barking  for  Fatima,  feel- 


302        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

ing  somehow  or  another,  as  if  my  picture  ought  to 
be  in  the  Rogues'  Gallery  if  it  wasn't. 

"  I  was  still  hoarsely  praising  Fatima  at  five 
o'clock  on  that  sizzling  hot  afternoon  when  a 
messenger  boy  on  a  bike  rode  up  to  the  curb  and 
dismounted.  Then  he  took  an  envelope  out  of  his 
cap  and  handed  it  to  me. 

"'What's  this?'  I  asked  him. 

" c  Gentleman  down  at  the  corner  of  Dearborn 
and  Madison  streets  told  me  to  give  it  to  you,'  said 
the  messenger. 

" '  But  it's  got  no  name  on  it,'  said  I. 

" '  No,'  said  the  boy,  '  but  he  told  me  what  you 
looked  like/ 

"  I  opened  the  envelope.  A  nice,  new  $500  bill 
fell  out  first,  and  then  a  scrawl  on  a  telegraph 
blank. 

" '  Here's  your  bit/  the  scrawl  read.  '  I  found 
the  plant,  fenced  it,  and  have  left  enough  behind 
for  George's  lawyer.  They're  after  me,  and  I'm 
drilling  away  from  this.  T.  R.' 

"  Well,  there  was  no  way  of  sending  it  back, 
was  there  ?  He  was  gone.  So  was  I,  three  hours 
later.  But  every  time  I  read  of  a  second-story- 
man  I  shudder  guiltily,  and  can  feel  a  hefty  paw  on 
my  shoulder." 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  3  ENDEAVORETH  to 
CONVEY  AN  IDEA  OF  THE  MISERY  OF  AWAK 
ENING  IN  YE  BUG- WARD 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH 

WHEREIN  EX-TANK  NO.  3  ENDEAVORETH  TO  CON 
VEY  AN  IDEA  OF  THE  MISERY  OF  AWAKENING 
IN  YE  BUG-WARD 

"  ONE  morning  I  turned  over  drowsily  and  woke 
up  in  a  bug-ward  that  I  couldn't  exactly  place," 
said  Ex-Tank  No.  3,  the  Secretary  of  the  Harlem 
Club  of  Former  Alcoholic  Degenerates.  "  Before 
I  had  a  chance  to  look  around  and  try  to  study  the 
thing  out,  I  found  myself  fixed  by  the  gaze  of  the 
man  in  the  bunk  on  my  right.  He  was  resting  on 
his  left  side,  with  his  head  in  his  hand,  and  he  was 
regarding  me  with  a  curious  grin.  Maybe  it  was 
his  steady  gaze  that  woke  me  up  ;  I've  often  seen 
people  awakened  out  of  a  sound  sleep  that  way. 
This  man  in  the  bunk  on  my  right  had  a  big,  good- 
natured,  smooth-shaven  face  and  twinkling  Irish 
eyes.  His  grin  deepened  when  he  saw  that  I  was 
awake.  I  wasn't  feeling  cheerful. 

" '  Glad  situation,  ain't  it  ? '  said  I,  sarcastically. 

" '  Kind  o','  he  replied,  still  grinning. 

"  I  looked  around  the  bug-ward  wonderingly. 

" 4  Is  it  a  new  one  on  you  ? '  asked  the  good-na- 
305 


306        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

tured  chap  in  the  bunk  on  my  right.  '  If  it  isn't, 
put  me  next  to  where  it  is,  what  town  it's  in,  and 
a  little  stuff  like  that.' 

" '  Search  me,'  said  I.  '  I  am  in-no-cent.  Don't 
you  remember  breaking  in  ?  ' 

" '  Nope,'  said  the  man  with  the  twinkling  Irish 
eyes.  c  Don't  remember  anything.  If  this  zebra- 
shack's  in  Chicago,  then  it's  one  that  I've  missed. 
Don't  you  recall  when  you  butted  in  here  ? ' 

" '  Nay,  belike,  sorry  the  day,'  said  I. 

"  'Just  touch  that  button  there  and  we'll  have  a 
couple  of  those  things  with  cherries  in  'em,'  said 
my  bunkmate  facetiously. 

"  c  Is  Chicago  the  last  you  remember  of  it  ? '  I 
asked  him. 

"  '  Yep,'  said  he.  c  Last  thing  I  remember  be 
fore  I  got  into  this  hop-trance  was  shaking  dice  for 
pints  at  the  Auditorium  bar.  This  outfit  may  be 
in  Chicago,  for  all  I  know.  Don't  remember  leav 
ing  Chicago,  anyhow.' 

"  '  Same  here,'  said  I.  '  Last  thing  that  stands 
out  in  my  recollection  is  matching  quarters  for 
high-balls  in  the  House  of  David.' 

"Just  then  a  big  bruiser  of  an  Irish  attendant 
sauntered  by. 

" '  Hey,  there,  Hugo,'  said  the  man  in  the  bunk 
on  my  right,  calling  after  the  Mulligan  attendant, 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH          307 

c  tip  us  off  on  the  name  of  the  cave  and  the  town 
it's  in,  will  you  ?  We're  twisted.' 

" '  Oh,  yees  two  Injuns  has  come  to,  has  yees  ?  ' 
said  the  wardman,  wheeling  around  and -walking 
up  to  our  bunks.  '  This  is  th'  dizzy-ward  o'  th' 
Moonisippal  Hoshpit'l  o'  St.  Paul,  if  yees  wants  t' 
know,  an'  th'  divil's  own  pair  yees  are,  t'  say  th' 
laste.' 

" '  St.  Paul,  hey  ? '  said  the  man  in  the  bunk  on 
my  right,  wonderingly.  '  Now,  how  the  devil  did  I 
get  to  St.  Paul,  I'd  like  to  know  ? ' 

"'Hand  me  an  easy  one,'  said  I.  'The  same 
one's  got  me  going  about  how  I  did  it  myself.' 

"'How  long  have  I  been  in  here,  Mike?' 
asked  my  bunkmate  of  the  wardman. 

'"Two  days,  ye  and  yees  pardner,'  said  the 
Mulligan,  indicating  me  with  a  nod  of  his  head 
when  he  said  '  pardner.' 

" '  Why,  did  the  two  of  us  land  here  in  a  bunch  ? 
Was  it  a  dead  heat  ? '  asked  my  bunkmate. 

" '  Yees  finished  roight  on  th'  wire  t'gither,'  said 
the  wardman.  '  Yees  came  here  in  a  cab  t'gither, 
an'  no  cop  along  wid  yees.  Yees  must  ha'  made 
up  yees  moinds  at  wan  an'  th'  same  toime  t'  bale 
yeezselves  out.' 

"  Then  the  Mulligan  wardman  went  along 
about  his  business. 


3o8        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

" c  So  we  landed  here  linked-arms,'  said  my 
bunkmate.  l  Queer  deal,  ain't  it  ?  ' 

" c  May  have  met  on  the  train,'  said  I.  c  May 
have  run  into  each  other  in  Chicago,  for  that  mat 
ter.  The  game  now's  to  get  out.' 

" c  They  won't  stand  for  it,'  said  my  bunkmate. 
c  They'll  hang  on  to  us  for  a  week,  anyway.' 

"Just  then  the  young  doctor  in  charge  of  the 
ward  came  in.  Seeing  us  awake  and  engaged  in 
conversation,  he  walked  over  to  our  bunks. 

u  c  Oh,  you  two  have  got  around,  have  you  ? ' 
said  the  young  doctor.  *  How  do  you  both  feel  ? ' 

"'Well,  speaking  for  myself,  I've  got  a  hunch 
to  go  home,'  replied  my  bunkmate. 

" '  The  same  dog's  biting  me,'  said  I. 

"  '  Impossible  ! '  said  the  young  doctor.  '  You're 
both  in  a  condition  of  prostration.  If  I  were  to 
turn  you  loose  now,  you'd  both  be  back  here  be 
fore  night.' 

"  c  Well,  you  don't  want  to  stand  to  go  broke  on 
that  proposition,'  said  the  man  in  the  right-hand 
bunk.  *  Henceforth  and  forever  I  abjure  the 
Flagon.' 

" '  I  won't  take  a  drink  out  of  a  Pompeiian  tear- 
jar  as  long  as  I  live,'  said  I. 

"  '  Oh,  I've  heard  that  kind  of  stuff  before,'  said 
the  young  doctor,  jauntily.  c  If  I  signed  your  re- 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH         309 

lease,  the  both  of  you'd  be  spifticated  by  noon,  and 
then  when  you  came  back  the  Super  would  hound 
me  for  letting  you  go.' 

"  Well,  we  both  started  in  to  con  that  young 
man,  and  we  make  it  stick. 

"  c  You  both  belong  in  Chicago,  you  say  ? '  asked 
the  young  doctor,  yieldingly.  '  Well,  that's  a  long 
walk  from  St.  Paul.  I  think  there  were  seventeen 
cents  between  you  when  you  got  in.' 

" c  Touched,  all  right/  said  my  bunkmate  and  I, 
together. 

"  Well,  anyhow,  we  got  out  all  right  by  noon. 
When  I  saw  my  bunkmate  togged  out  he  proved 
to  be  dressy  and  a  good-looker.  I  had  a  front  of 
my  own  at  that.  The  young  doctor  had  under 
estimated  our  joint  wealth.  I  had  eighty-five  cents 
in  change,  and  my  bunkmate  had  twenty-eight 
cents.  I  blew  him  off  to  an  ammonia  cocktail  at 
the  first  drug  store  we  came  to,  and  then  said  he : 

"  '  How  about  the  ride  to  Chicago  ? ' 

" l  Lemme  have  a  pencil  and  I'll  try  a  scheme,' 
said  I,  and  we  went  to  the  writing-room  of  a  hotel. 
I  dug  for  an  hour,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  I'd 
written  a  rollicking,  rolling  song  called  '  Riding  on 
the  C.,  M.  &  St.  P.'  It  set  forth  attractively  the 
advantages  of  travelling  on  that  line  of  railroad.  I 
showed  it  to  my  pal,  and  hummed  it  over  for  him. 


3io        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Then  we  hummed  it  together.     Then  we  took  it 
to  the  St.  Paul  agent  of  the  C.,  M.  &  St.  P. 

" '  Here,'  said  I  to  the  agent,  '  is  the  chance  of 
your  life  to  be  made  general  manager  of  your 
line/ 

"  Then  my  pal  and  I  lined  up  together  and  sang 
c  Riding  on  the  C.,  M.  &  St.  P.'  for  the  agent. 

"'Now,  all  you've  got  to  do,  in  order  to  make 
such  a  hit  with  the  board  of  directors  that  they 
can't  hold  you  down,'  said  I  to  the  agent,  c  is  to 
have,  say,  25,000  copies  of  this  song  printed  and 
distributed  free,  as  advertising  matter.  That'll 
enable  the  road  to  declare  an  extra  three  per  cent, 
dividend  inside  of  a  month,  and  you'll  be  hailed 
and  applauded  by  the  stockholders  as  a  genius. 
You  can  tell  them  you  wrote  the  song  yourself. 
All  this  fame  and  glory  and  advancement  to  accrue 
to  you  for  two  little  passes  over  your  line  from  here 
to  Chicago.  See  ?  Great  idea,  hey  ?  ' 

u  The  agent  handed  us  the  polaric  eye,  and  we 
faded  out  into  the  nippy,  frosty  street. 

"  I  changed  the  song  a  bit  so's  to  adapt  it  to  an 
other  road  that  ran  to  Chicago,  and  we  took  it  to 
the  agent  of  that  line  and  hummed  it  for  him.  He, 
too,  passed  us  the  Antarctic  stare,  and  we  found 
ourselves  out  in  the  eager  air. 

"  We  went  to  the  barber  shop  to  get  shaved  and 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH         311 

think  it  over.  It  was  a  hotel  barber  shop.  The 
man  who  had  the  chair  next  to  mine  was  beefing 
to  his  barber  about  the  lack  of  shorthand  and  type 
writing  facilities  around  the  hotel. 

u  c  It's  a  jay  outfit,  right,'  he  was  saying.  c  I've 
got  twenty  letters  to  get  off  in  the  next  mail,  and 
not  a  darned  key-puncher  around  the  place.' 

u  I  cut  in  right  there. 

"'You  can  dictate  'em  to  me,'  I  said  to  the 
man,  l  and  I'll  dig  up  a  machine  somewhere  and 
transcribe  the  notes.' 

" '  I'll  go  you,'  said  the  man,  and  when  I  had  my 
shave  I  went  up  to  the  writing-room  within,  and 
he  dictated  his  letters  to  me.  I  went  to  a  type 
writer  agency,  and,  on  pretext  of  trying  the  differ 
ent  machines,  ran  off  the  letters  in  an  hour,  telling 
them  that  I'd  reserve  decision  as  to  which  machine 
I'd  select.  The  man  I  did  the  work  for  handed 
me  a  ten-dollar  note,  which  I  showed  gloatingly  to 
my  pal,  who  was  waiting  for  me. 

" l  Well/  said  he,  '  it's  not  up  to  you  to  do  all 
of  the  hustling.  I  guess  I'd  better  run  out  and 
tackle  a  turn  at  carrying  the  hod.' 

" c  Wait'll  I  run  this  button  up  to  a  billion,'  I 
said.  'You  stay  here  in  the  writing-room  and 
keep  warm.' 

u 1    noticed    my  ex-bunkmate  of  the  bug-ward 


3i2        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

looking  at  me  shrewdly  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye, 
and  I  was  rather  tickled  to  have  a  chance  to  ex 
hibit  my  hustling  abilities  before  him. 

"  c  You've  done  some  winning-out  before,  chum/ 
said  he,  eyeing  me  craftily. 

"Henry  Irving  was  playing  in  St.  Paul  that 
night.  I  hustled  down  to  the  box  office.  There 
was  a  line  in  front  of  the  window  about  a  block 
long.  I  skinned  up  the  line,  beginning  at  the  rear, 
and  quietly  suggested  to  a  lot  of  the  swell  ducks 
that  were  shivering  and  stamping  their  feet — some 
of  'em  had  been  in  line  for  hours — that  I  could 
get  'em  their  seats  inside  of  five  minutes  for  a 
bonus.  I  picked  up  fourteen  customers.  I  made 
a  list  of  the  number  each  wanted,  and  where,  and 
they  handed  me  their  money  freely.  I  hustled  into 
the  box  office  and  tackled  the  manager. 

tl  c  I'm  the  Board  of  Aldermen's  messenger,' 
said  I  to  him,  '  and  they've  sent  me  down  with  a 
list  of  the  seats  they  want.  Can  you  dig  'em  up 
before  the  good  ones  are  all  gone  ? ' 

"  It  went  with  a  whoop.  The  manager  was 
only  too  tickled  to  oblige  the  Board  of  Aldermen. 
I  got  the  seats,  turned  'em  over  to  my  people  in 
the  line,  and  yanked  out  two  dollars  on  each  deal, 
which  made  twenty-eight  dollars.  That  made  me 
thirty-eight  to  the  good  altogether. 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH          313 

u  I  could  see  that  there  weren't  going  to  be  half 
enough  seats  for  the  people  who  wanted  to  see  the 
Irving  show,  and  so,  with  the  thirty-eight  dollars  I 
hustled  back  to  the  box  office  and  shot  one  into  the 
manager  about  being  delegated  by  the  City  Hall 
employees  to  get  them  seats,  too.  He  sort  o' 
passed  me  the  searching  look  then,  and  I  prepared 
to  edge  out  backward  when  I  saw  him  making  a 
move  toward  the  telephone.  But  he  reconsidered 
it,  and  gave  me  nineteen  good  balcony  seats  for 
two  dollars  per.  I  took  'em  to  where  my  ex- 
bunkmate  was  waiting  for  me  and  told  him  of  the 
wealth  in  prospect. 

" c  It's  too  good  to  go  through,'  said  he. 
'  You'll  fall  out  of  bed  and  bump  your  head  in  a 
minute.' 

"Well,  at  four  o'clock  that  afternoon  the  box- 
office  people  turned  the  box  on  the  big  line  of 
people  still  standing  in  front,  waiting  for  a  chance 
to  buy  tickets,  and  the  l  No  More  Seats  '  sign  was 
hung  out.  I  was  right  there  at  the  time,  and  it 
was  like  taking  a  candy  cane  from  an  infant  to 
pass  up  and  down  the  line  and  offer  to  purvey  my 
two  dollar  balcony  seats  to  the  disappointed  bunch 
for  five  dollars  a  throw.  They  ate  'em  up  at  that 
figure,  and  I  cleaned  up  fifty-seven  dollars  on  the 
job.  That  made  me  ninety-five  dollars  strong,  and 


3 14        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

Chicago  was  right  across  the  street  for  my  ex- 
bunkmate  and  me. 

"  I  flashed  the  roll  on  him  in  the  writing-room 
of  the  hotel  where  he'd  been  waiting  just  when  the 
shades  of  early  dusk  were  falling. 

"  '  We'll  take  a  mild  eat/  said  I,  '  get  in  a  night's 
sleep,  and  join  the  varnished-car-caravan  Chicago- 
ward  to-morrow  morning.  When  we  get  to  Chi 
cago  we  can  respectively  find  out  why  and  how  we 
ever  left  there.' 

"'Say,'  said  my  bunkmate  of  the  bug-ward 
when  we  were  at  the  table  in  the  hotel  supper  room, 
'  what  I  want  to  know  is,  Where  do  I  cut  into  that 
wad  you've  picked  up  so  scientifically  ?  You 
don't  know  me.  I've  got  no  claim  on  you.  How 
do  you  happen  to  count  me  in  on  this  ride  back  to 
Chicago  ?  I've  done  none  of  the  hustling.  I 
don't  know  how  to  hustle  that  way.  Conse 
quently,  why  should  I  let  you  pick  me  up  on  your 
shoulders  and  pack  me  back  to  Chicago  ?  ' 

"  '  No  reason,  particularly,'  said  I,  '  except  that 
you  speak  the  language  of  my  tribe,  that  you're 
the  same  sort  of  an  irresponsible  idiot  that  I  am, 
and  that  you're  up  against  it.  Isn't  that  enough  ? 
I'd  want  you  to  do  as  much  for  me  if  the  condi 
tions  were  reversed.  I  don't  believe  you've  been 
joggled  and  jolted  around  as  much  as  I've  been, 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH         315 

otherwise  you'd  see  how  and  why  it's  up  to  me, 
as  your  ex-bunkmate  of  a  bug-ward,  to  see  you 
back  to  your  base  of  operations,  both  of  us  having 
been  turned  loose  in  company  at  one  and  the  same 
time.  See  ? ' 

u  c  Oh,  you'll  do,'  said  my  pal,  looking  at  me  in 
the  peculiar  way  I'd  noticed  during  the  afternoon. 

"The  next  morning  we  took  the  train  for 
Chicago. 

"  '  Well,'  said  I  to  my  ex-bunkmate  when  we 
pulled  into  the  station  in  Chicago,  '  here's  where 
we  break  apart.  I  suppose  you're  going  home  ? 
lam.' 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  didn't  have  any  home  to 
go  to  ;  but  I  didn't  care  to  own  up  to  that. 

" '  Hope  I'll  run  in  with  you  some  other  time,' 
I  wound  up,  at  the  same  time  trying  to  slip  him  a 
ten-spot. 

"  He  looked  at  me,  and  then  at  the  ten,  and 
smiled. 

"  '  Let's  get  into  a  cab  and  take  a  little  ride  first,' 
said  he,  hustling  me  into  a  roller.  Then  he  or 
dered  the  cabman  to  drive  to  the  swellest  club  in 
Chicago.  I  was  mystified,  and  looked  him  over 
to  see  if  he  was  all  there. 

"  '  You'll  be  waking  up  presently,'  I  said. 

"  '  Oh,  I  guess  I  haven't  been  expelled,'  said  he, 


316        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

coolly,  and  then  the  cab  pulled  up  before  the  club. 
We  went  in.  Twenty  swell  geezers  were  around 
my  bunkmate  of  the  bug-ward  in  half  a  minute, 
shaking  hands  with  him,  asking  him  where  he'd 
been,  and  making  much  of  him.  It  got  me  going. 
Then  he  introduced  me  to  the  whole  mob  as  his 
old  friend  and  guest.  Then  he  went  to  the  club 
treasurer  and  had  a  personal  check  for  $500  cashed. 
This  he  handed  to  me. 

"  c  You'll  do  all  right/  said  he,  with  a  smile. 
4  Make  a  raid  on  the  haberdashers  in  the  morning, 
get  out  what  stuff  you've  got  in,  and  come  around 
to  my  office  about  noon,'  handing  me  his  business 
card,  that  of  a  building  contractor,  with  offices  in 
the  topnotch  office  building  of  Chicago. 

"Well,  I  did  see  him  at  his  office  at  noon  the 
next  day.  He  certainly  was  a  Prince  Charlie  to 
me.  He  was  worth  about  a  million,  that's  all, 
and  he  put  me  on  his  staff  as  his  confidential 
man. 

" '  I've  needed  a  resourceful,  hustling  man  in  my 
business  for  some  time,  and  you're  It,'  said  he, 
while  I  tried  to  hide  my  blushes  behind  my  hat. 

"  '  Why  didn't  you  make  the  wires  sizzle  when 
you  were  broke  in  St.  Paul  day  before  yesterday  ? ' 
I  asked  him. 

"  '  There  was  too  much  fun  in  studying  the  win- 


TALE  THE  TWENTIETH         317 

out  methods   adopted   by  a  man  just  turned  loose 
from  a  bug-ward,'  he  said. 

"  That's  when  I  became  good  and  learned  the 
building  contract  business,"  concluded  Ex-Tank 
No.  3. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST 


IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  n  RELATETH  How  HE 
ANNIHILATED  THE  DISTANCE  OVER  YE  ROCKY 
MOUNTAINS 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST 

IN    WHICH    EX-TANK    NO.    II     RELATETH     HOW    HE 
ANNIHILATED     THE    DISTANCE    OVER     YE     ROCKY 

MOUNTAINS 

"  IN  order  to  get  from  San  Francisco  to  Chicago, 
said  Ex-Tank  No.  1 7,  "  you  have  first  got  to  raise 
the  price  of  a  ride  on  the  ferry  over  to  Oakland, 
where  all  caravans  bound  for  the  land  of  the  rising 
sun  are  formed.  Well,  I  got  over  to  Oakland 
without  swimming.  I  waited  until  quite  a  crowd 
had  formed  around  the  ferry  gate  on  the  San  Fran 
cisco  side,  and  when  the  gate  was  thrown  open, 
and  the  ticket-taker  had  begun  business,  I  joggled 
my  way  through  the  bunch,  holding  up  a  hand 
kerchief. 

" '  Hey  ! '  I  yelled  after  an  imaginary  guy  who 
had  suppositiously  passed  the  ticket-taker,  c  you've 
dropped  your  mouchoir,  old  man  ;  just  stay  where 
you  are  and  I'll  hand  it  to  you.' 

"  The    ticket-taker    didn't    have    time    to    look 

around   for  the  purpose   of  spotting  the  man  who 

hadn't  dropped  any  handkerchief,  and  he  passed  me 

through  the  gate,  naturally,  without  demanding  any 

321 


322        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

ticket,  supposing  that  as  soon  as  I'd  returned  the 
dropped  handkerchief  to  the  owner  thereof  I'd 
come  right  back  outside  the  gate.  But  I  didn't 
come  back.  I  went  right  aboard  the  ferryboat  and 
mingled  with  the  madding  throng.  For,  in  setting 
out  from  San  Francisco  for  Chicago  you've  got  to 
get  to  Oakland  first. 

"  This  was  along  toward  five  o'clock  on  a  benign 
May  afternoon,  six  years  ago.  I  had  been  min 
gling  in  scenes  of  tumult  in  San  Francisco  for  some 
three  months.  No  Eastern  man  may  mingle  in 
scenes  of  San  Francisco  tumult  for  three  months 
and  retain,  at  the  finish,  the  wherewithal  for  a  ride 
across  the  mountains  to  this  side.  He  must  either 
have  on  his  staff  San  Francisco  bankers  who  will 
honor  his  draft,  or  sympathetic  relatives  on  this 
side  of  the  Divide  who  will  make  good  in  response 
to  his  telegrams,  charges  collect.  Otherwise,  he 

must Well,  any  way,  there  I  was,  on  the 

Oakland  side,  filled  with  a  deep  ardor  to  get  back  to 
Chicago. 

"  I  walked  into  the  station  where  the  caravans 
are  formed  for  the  East,  and  engaged  in  a  line  of 
sombre  thinks.  The  hit  motif  of  my  thinks  was 
this :  '  To  get  back  to  Chicago  without  a  ticket, 
without  walking,  and  without  recourse  to  the  side- 
door  Pullmans/ 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST      323 

u  There  was  a  large  gang  of  Regular  Army  sol 
diers  in  the  station  waiting  for  a  train  to  be  made 
up.  The  gang  was  composed  of  four  heavy  bat 
teries  of  an  artillery  regiment,  about  to  make  the 
shift  from  the  Presidio  of  San  Francisco  to  an  At 
lantic  station.  Three-fifths  of  them  were  already 
pretty  comfortable,  thanks,  with  bottles  hid  away 
in  their  knapsacks,  and  these  were  practically 
under  guard  of  the  other  two-fifths. 

"'I'd  like  to  be  a  soldier,'  I  hummed,  thinking 
of  the  fatherly  way  Uncle  Sam  has  of  transporting 
his  troops. 

" '  The  hell  you  would  ! '  said  a  voice  in  my  ear. 
I  turned  around  and  perceived  that  the  voice  be 
longed  to  a  soldier  who  was  more  than  moderately 
soused. 

"  l  Well,'  said  I  to  him, *  just  until  this  train  that 
you  fellows  are  taking  reached  the  East,  I'd  like  to 
be  a  soldier.' 

" '  Say,'  said  the  soldier,  dropping  his  tone,  and 
beckoning  me  over  to  a  corner  of  the  men's  smok 
ing-room  of  the  station,  '  maybe  me  and  you  can 
do  some  business.  D'je  say  that  you  wanted  to 
get  back  East  ?  " 

" c  Well,'  said  I,  '  I'd  ship  as  a  sailor  on  an  air 
ship,  if  I  knew  of  one  that  was  going  to  start 
East.' 


324        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

" '  Well,  t'ell  with  the  snow  shovellers  back 
East  is  my  maxim/  said  this  queer  soldier.  '  I'm 
a  sloper,  and  I'm  glad  of  it,  and  I  don't  want  to  go 
East,  and  the  beauty  of  it  is  that  I  ain't  a-going 
East  if  I  can  jump  the  outfit.  Say,  I'll  trade  you 
clothes/ 

" '  For  why  ?  '  I  asked  him. 

" '  You  ain't  so  wise  as  you  look,'  said  the 
soldier  with  the  skate,  talking  right  close  to  my 
ear.  c  If  you're  so  dead  stuck  on  getting  back 
East,  you  can  take  my  place,  see  ?  I'm  a  rookie, 
and  when  I  joined  this  outfit  at  the  Presidio  I 
didn't  figure  on  'em  sending  me  East.  T'ell  with 
the  East.  I  buck  when  it  comes  to  going  East. 
And  I'm  going  to  jump  the  outfit  right  here. 
Trade  me  togs,  and  you  can  slip  in  with  the  bunch 
and  go  along  as  a  buck  private  in  the  regular 
army.  They'll  not  get  next  in  the  shuffle,  not  till 
you've  made  a  good  piece  of  the  trip,  anyhow,  and 
when  they  do  get  wise  that  you  ain't  me,  they 
can't  do  no  more  than  ditch  you.  Are  you  on  ?  •' 

u  Well,  it  was  a  chance,  anyhow.  I  slipped  out 
of  the  station  with  the  soldier,  and  we  went  across 
the  street  to  a  dive  and  traded  clothes. 

"'Your  name's  McGinley  in  C  Battery,  under 
stand  ? '  said  the  soldier  who  was  about  to  desert, 
after  we'd  effected  the  exchange  of  raiment.  '  But 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST       325 

nobody'll  ask  your  name,  at  that.  There  ain't  no 
roll  calls  to  be  answered.  S'long,  pal.  You  can 
have  all  the  darned  snow  shovelling  back  East  you 
want.  Old  San  Fran's  good  enough  for  me.' 

"  Then  he  faded  from  my  view.  A  friend  of 
mine  at  Department  Headquarters  in  Chicago 
afterward  told  me  that  McGinley  had  been  col 
lared  for  desertion  on  the  day  following  the  de 
parture  of  the  batteries  from  Oakland,  and  that  he 
was  nailed  for  a  two-year  term  on  Alcatraz  Island. 
McGinley  struck  me  as  being  an  amiable  and  yet 
a  determined  cuss,  but  his  prejudice  against  the 
East  was  his  undoing. 

"  I  went  back  to  the  station  and  joined  the 
bunch  of  soldiers  who  had  the  letter  c  C  '  over  their 
cross-cannons.  I  am  naturally  clannish,  and  I 
wanted  to  mingle  with  my  own  outfit.  I  noticed 
'em  looking  at  me  peculiarly — the  privates,  that  is. 
The  officers  and  non-commissioned  officers  were 
all  too  busy  to  notice  me.  I  kept  my — McGin- 
ley's — campaign  hat  pretty  well  pulled  over  my 
eyes,  anyhow.  I  fell  in  with  the  '  C '  battery 
crowd  when  the  order  to  march  to  the  tourist 
sleepers  was  given,  taking  up  an  obscure  position 
'way  behind,  and  by  that  time  the  shades  of  night 
had  descended.  There  were  five  tourist  sleepers 
for  the  soldiers,  and  the  berths  were  made  up  im- 


326        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

mediately  all  hands  were  embarked.  Contrary  to 
McGinley's  prediction,  the  roll  was  called  as  soon 
as  the  men  got  aboard  the  train.  A  sergeant  stood 
at  the  door  of  the  car  *  C '  battery  was  on  and 
called  out  the  names.  I  '  stood  by '  for  him  to 
reach  the  Ms,  and  when  he  called  out  '  McGinley,' 
4  Here,'  said  I,  in  the  perkiest  way  you  ever  heard. 

"  That  put  the  members  of  l  C  '  battery  next  to 
me.  When  I  crawled  into  my  bunk,  after  the 
train  was  under  way,  a  fellow  in  a  bunk  across  the 
aisle  stuck  his  head  out  between  the  curtains. 

"'Say,  has  McGinley  jumped?'  he  asked  me 
in  a  hoarse  whisper. 

"  '  I  am  McGinley,'  said  I,  frivolously,  and  I 
heard  a  lot  of  subdued  chuckles  from  the  other 
bunks.  I  was  all  right  with  them.  They  wouldn't 
have  spieled  a  line  under  any  circumstances.  But 
the  next  morning,  when  reveille  was  sounded  in  the 
car,  and  we  got  into  uniform,  the  top  sergeant  of 
4  C '  battery  nailed  me.  He  looked  me  over  a 
couple  of  times — this  was  just  when  the  train  was 
about  to  pull  into  Mojave — and  he  came  over 
close  to  where  I  was  sitting  and  said  in  a  low 
tone : 

" '  McGinley,  hey  ?  Fm  sorry,  son ;  but  it 
won't  do.' 

" '  I  don't  think  so  myself,'  said  I. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST      327 

"'And  it's  liable  to  get  me  into  trouble,  at  that,' 
said  the  sergeant.  '  I  reported  McGinley  present 
and  accounted  for  at  roll  call  last  night,  before  the 
train  started.  But  I  can  explain  that  by  claiming 
that  McGinley  hopped  off  at  some  stop  during  the 
night.  You'd  better  jump  off  here  at  Mojave. 
The  officer  in  charge  of  the  battery  might  collar 
you  for  being  in  possession  of  a  deserter's  uniform, 
or  something  like  that.' 

"  And  so,  when  the  train  pulled  into  Mojave,  I 
slid  off,  and  stayed  off,  until  the  train  was  under 
way  again.  The  best  I  did  by  switching  togs  with 
a  buck  soldier  was  to  get  ditched  at  Mojave,  Cal., 
and,  all  in  all,  it  is  solacing  now  to  reflect  that 
McGinley  had  to  do  his  two  years  at  Alcatraz"  Is 
land. 

"  Mojave,  Cal.,  is  just  a  nightmareish  mirage. 
It  is  planted  between  a  lot  of  dwarfed  mountains 
that  are  yellow  all  the  year  around,  and  the  whole 
aspect  around  Mojave  is  that  of  a  portion  of  the 
earth  that  the  lightning  of  heaven  has  a  habit  of 
striking  and  stripping  bare  several  times  a  day. 
The  country  around  Mojave  looks  riven  and 
scarred,  and  the  never-ceasing  wind  moans  threno 
dies  in  your  ears  from  first  call  in  the  morning 
until  taps  at  night,  and  then  right  on  until  first  call 
again.  Mojave  consists  of  a  shack  station,  an  eat- 


328        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

ing-place  attached  thereto,  and  about  a  dozen 
hontatonks  across  the  street.  However,  there  I 
was  in  Mojave — the  soldiers,  referring  to  the  rail 
road  maps,  had  called  it  Mojayve — in  a  buck  ar 
tilleryman's  uniform,  with  a  hopeless  number  of 
leagues  of  mountain  and  plain  intervening  between 
me  and  Chicago. 

" '  This,'  said  I  to  myself,  as  I  stood  behind  the 
eating-house,  keeping  out  of  sight  until  the  train 
had  started,  '  is  the  limit.  This  is  where  I  cash 
in  for  keeps.  There's  no  way  out  of  this.  This 
is  the  real  thing,  and  I  don't  care  a ' 

"<  Well,  I'll  be  damned!'  said  a  voice  behind 
me. 

"  I  wheeled  around,  and  there  was  a  fellow  that 
I  had  played  marbles  and  shinny  with  back  in  this 
part  of  the  world.  He  had  a  sombrero  on  the  back 
of  his  head,  his  hands  were  jammed  into  his  pockets, 
and  he  was  smoking  a  cigar.  I  hadn't  seen  him 
for  four  years,  and  there  he  was.  He  handed  me 
the  cordial  mitt. 

"  c  D'je  get  left  ? '  he  inquired,  nodding  in  the  di 
rection  of  the  disappearing  train. 

" '  Well,  not  exactly  in  the  way  you  might  im 
agine  if  you're  judging  from  this  Little  Boy  Blue 
makeup,'  I  told  him,  and  then  I  handed  him  the 
story  of  my  debut  in  Mojave.  He  himself  had 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST      329 

gone  broke  in  Los  Angeles  the  month  before,  and 
had  met  up  with  the  owner  of  a  string  of  railroad 
eating-houses,  including  the  one  at  Mojave.  He'd 
got  the  job  of  managing  the  Mojave  eating-house, 
and  he  was  It  in  Mojave. 

" '  But  it's  not  much  more  than  a  board-and- 
keep  graft  for  me,'  he  said, c  and  I  don't  know  how 
I  can  send  you  along  up  the  line  to  Chicago. 
S'pose  you  stay  along  and  hash  for  me  until  some 
thing  turns  up.  I've  got  a  Chink  now  to  take  care 
of  the  lunch  room.  I'll  fire  him  and  you  can  have 
the  job — thirty  a  month  and  keep.  And  some 
thing  may  happen  to  give  you  a  lift  up  to 
Windville.' 

"  I  took  the  job.  It  was  like  manna  from  above, 
at  that.  My  former  pal,  the  manager  of  the  eat 
ing-house,  passed  me  a  suit  of  his  togs,  and  I  sold 
the  soldier  clothes  to  a  teamster  for  two  dollars, 
which  was  more  money  than  I  thought  there  was 
in  the  state  of  California  since  I'd  gone  broke  in 
San  Francisco.  I  dished  up  the  truck  to  the  hun 
gry  bunches  that  rushed  in  when  the  trains  came 
along — not  many  trains  hesitated  at  Mojave,  at 
that — and  it  was  a  pretty  good  job.  I  figured  on 
saving  all  of  my  thirty  per  for  a  ticket  back  to 
Chicago  after  a  couple  of  months'  work  at  hashing. 
But  I  didn't  need  to. 


330        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"  About  ten  days  after  I'd  hit  Mojave,  a  jagged 
cockney  got  off  the  morning  train  that  came  in 
from  Los  Angeles.  He  had  come  to  meet  the  San 
Francisco  train,  east  bound.  He  was  a  servant  on 
the  staff  of  a  Chicago  packer  whose  name  you  all 
know,  and  he  was  to  take  charge,  at  Mojave,  of 
five  foxhounds  that  were  due  on  the  train  from  San 
Francisco,  and  take  care  of  'em  for  the  remainder 
of  the  journey  to  Chicago.  The  cockney  had  ap 
parently  begun  to  load  up  as  soon  as  he  got  aboard 
the  train  at  Los  Angeles,  and  when  he  got  off  at 
Mojave  he  was  talkative  and  blustery.  He  told 
me  all  about  those  fox'ounds,  'ow  they  were  travel 
ling  in  the  express  car,  *ow  he  was  going  to  travel 
on  the  same  train — in  a  first-rite  Pullman,  moind 
ye — with  the  dogs,  and  only  'ad  to  see  that  they 
were  fed  hand  watered  on  the  way,  and  so  on. 
Then  he  corned  up  a  lot  more  while  he  waited  for 
the  train  to  arrive  from  San  Francisco  with  the 
dogs  relegated  to  his  keeping  during  the  trip  across 
the  continent.  He  was  google-eyed  and  spiflicated, 
and  sleeping  in  a  room  over  the  eating-house,  all 
out  to  the  last  ounce,  when  the  station  operator 
got  the  signal  that  the  train  from  San  Francisco 
was  only  a  few  miles  away.  My  friend  the  boss 
of  the  eating-house  had  heard  the  cockney's  spiel 
about  the  dogs,  and  he  came  to  me  in  the  lunch  room. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST      331 

"  *  Well,  s'long,  old  chap,'  said  he.  '  Hope 
you'll  have  a  nice  ride.  Give  my  regards  to  the 
gang  in  Chicago.' 

u  '  Not  so  fierce,  not  so  fierce,'  said  I.  l  How 
and  when  am  I  going  to  get  to  Chicago  ?  ' 

"  l  Well,  you're  going  to  take  those  dogs,  ain't 
you  ?  '  he  said,  tipping  me  the  wink.  c  That  cock 
ney's  paralyzed  upstairs,  and  he  won't  jolt  himself 
awake  for  twelve  hours.  Meanwhile,  you're  the 
man  that's  supposed  to  be  waiting  here  to  hitch  on 
to  the  train  and  take  charge  of  those  dogs.  See  ? 
Just  load  yourself  a  bushel-basket  full  of  grub  for 
the  trip,  and  here's  a  ten-spot  for  your  work  here. 
When  the  train  pulls  in,  and  the  man  in  charge  of 
the  express  car  looks  around  for  the  man  who's  to 
assume  control  of  those  dogs,  you're  the  boy, 
that's  all.' 

"  The  train  pulled  in,  and  the  man  in  charge  of 
the  express  car  was  the  first  to  jump  off  and  gallop 
into  the  station. 

"  '  Say/  he  asked,  '  is  there  a  man  here  that's 
going  to  take  charge  of  those  darned  dogs  ?  ' 

"  '  Yep,'  said  I.  '  I'm  the  geezer.  Just  gimme 
a  lift  with  this  basket-full  of  grub  for  'em,  will 


you  ? 


Just  then  the  conductor  came  up. 

'  You're  the  man  that's  to  join  those  hounds, 


332        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

eh  ? '  he  said.  '  Well,  here's  your  ticket  and  your 
berth  check,'  and  he  handed  'em  to  me. 

" '  Be  good,  chum,'  said  my  friend  the  manager 
of  the  eating-house,  shaking  hands  with  me  as  the 
train  was  about  to  pull  out.  '  You're  good  now 
for  a  through  trip.  I'll  take  care  of  the  cockney 
if  he  makes  any  belch.' 

"  Five  days  later  I  pulled  into  Chicago,  and  I'd 
made  such  a  mash  on  those  five  fine  foxhounds, 
by  spending  a  lot  of  time  in  the  car  with  them  and 
fooling  with  them,  that  they  declined  to  have  any 
thing  to  do  with  anybody  else.  I  was  in  a  quan 
dary,  however,  before  the  train  got  into  the  Chicago 
station,  as  to  what  I'd  do  with  the  dogs — how  I'd 
get  them  to  the  packer  to  whom  they  were  con 
signed  without  having  to  exude  a  lot  of  embarrass 
ing  explanations.  I  had  decided  to  load  them  in  a 
wagon  and  just  send  them  out,  without  any  word, 
to  the  packer's  residence  in  the  suburbs  of  Chicago. 
I  was  in  the  express  car  with  the  dogs  when  the 
train  got  in.  As  soon  as  the  door  of  the  car  was 
opened,  a  good-looking,  well-groomed,  elderly  man 
with  grey  side-whiskers  stuck  his  head  in. 

" l  Ah,  there  they  are,'  said  he. 

"  I  recognized  him  instantly  as  the  packer  to 
whom  the  dogs  belonged.  He'd  often  been  mugged 
for  the  picture  papers. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIRST      333 

" c  Yes,'  said  I,  coming  forward  out  of  the  dark 
ness  of  the  car,  '  here  they  are,  sir.' 

"  '  Why,  you're  not  James,'  said  he,  looking  at 
me  surprisedly. 

" '  No,  but  I  needed  the  ride,'  said  I,  and  then  I 
told  him  how  it  was  that  I,  and  not  his  Jeems,  was 
convoying  his  dogs. 

" '  Well,  I'll  be  dummed  if  that  wasn't  a  cool 
bit  of  work,'  said  the  packer.  c  Left  him  drunk  in 
Mojave,  Cal.,  you  say  ?  Well,  I'm  lucky  to  have 
my  dogs  back  here,  in  good  shape,  although  the 
transaction  wasn't  exactly — er — regular,  now, 
was  it  ?  However,  I'm  much  obliged,'  and  the 
fifty  dollar  note  that  he  passed  me  enabled  me  to 
promenade  the  old  fresh-water  front  that  evening 
with  a  real  impudent  look  of  prosperity  sticking 
out  all  over  me. 

"  But  I  had  a  lot  of  luck  on  that  cruise.  Under 
non-fortuitous  circumstances,  the  hike  between  San 
Francisco  and  Chicago  is  liable  to  be  one  of  ennui 
and  depression  for  the  man  who  hasn't  got  the 
pasteboard." 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-SECOND 


WHEREIN  EX-TANK  No.  18  DISCOURSETH  WARN- 

INGLY      ON      THE      INSIDIOUSNESS      OF     YE      GAM 
BLING  BUG 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-SECOND 

WHEREIN  EX-TANK.  NO.  1 8  DISCOURSETH  WARN- 
INGLY  ON  THE  INSIDIOUSNESS  OF  YE  GAMBLING 
BUG 

"THE  gambling  bug,"  remarked  No.  18,  "is  a 
buzzier  proposition  than  either  rum  or  dope.  It 
develops  wheels  within  wheels  under  the  hat.  It's 
a  hard  bug  to  shake  off.  It  belongs  to  the  clinch- 
icus  variety,  and  it's  a  stayer  from  No  Man's 
Land.  It  generates  the  fever  and  then  the  cold 
sweat.  Pretty  often  it  saps  a  man's  nerve  and 
breaks  his  heart.  Take  the  horse  bug,  for  ex 
ample.  A  man  who  lets  the  horse  bug  get  into  his 
lid  isn't  fit  for  work.  He  eats,  drinks  and  dreams 
horse.  I  had  such  a  big  horse  bug  once  that  I 
dreamed  every  night  of  some  skate  or  other  that 
was  inevitably  beaten  a  lap  for  third  money.  The 
way  I  worked  in  my  dreams  to  get  those  plugs  I 
was  riding  over  the  plate  among  the  first  three  is  a 
bother  to  think  of  now.  I  was  going  to  say,  in 
mentioning  work,  that  a  man  with  the  rum  bug 
alone  can  make  a  bluff  at  holding  down  his  job.  It 
337 


338        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

comes  hard  work,  after  a  swift  night;  yet  the 
practiced  rummerino  goes  at  it  and  gets  through 
with  it  somehow.  But  the  man  with  a  mature, 
healthy  horse  bug  can't  work  at  all.  He  wants  to 
know  how  they  are  running,  if  his  picks  are  going 
through.  He  hankers  to  see  'em  chafing  to  get 
away  from  the  pump  and  the  '  They're  off! '  shout 
is  the  sweetest  music  he  knows.  There  are  plenty 
of  pinheads  in  this  town  to-day  who,  long  ago 
smashed  and  put  out  of  business  through  the  in 
strumentality  of  the  horse  bug,  hang  around  the 
poolrooms  just  to  hear  the  races  called  off  by  the 
operators.  When  their  picks  go  through  they  snap 
their  fingers  and  root  as  if  they  stood  to  win  it  all 
back,  although  they  haven't  even  got  a  bet  down 
in  a  ten-cent  handbook.  The  horse  bug  is  a  lulu 
as  a  long-distance  goer,  all  right.  None  of  the 
gambling  bugs,  in  fact,  is  a  mere  sprinter.  They 
all  last  a  route. 

"  Well,  when  you  get  the  gambling  bug  in  com 
bination  with  the  rum  bug,  you're  in  trouble  and 
plenty  of  it.  They  play  one  against  the  other,  and 
they've  got  possession.  You're  never  it.  You 
make  a  winning  and  the  rum  bug  hauls  down  the 
pot.  You  decide  to  eradicate  the  gambling  bug 
and  let  the  rum  bug  play  solitaire.  When  the  rum 
bug  gets  you  going  you  immediately  set  out  to  cul- 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-SECOND    339 

tivate  another  gambling  bug.  And  you're  never 
one,  two,  three. 

"  Of  the  different  species  of  the  gambling  bug 
the  faro  clincher  '11  take  you  about,  as  far  as  any 
of  'em.  It  got  me  out  to  Spokane  about  twelve 
years  ago.  I  landed  there  with  the  last  suit  and  a 
straw  hat,  and  it  was  pretty  chilly  at  that.  I'd 
been  trying  to  create  a  booze  famine  in  Denver 
and  to  put  all  of  the  Denver  banks  out  of  business, 
and  when  I  fell  down  on  both  jobs  I  turned  my 
face  toward  the  land  of  the  setting  sun  on  a  tourist 
sleeper  and  pulled  up  in  Spokane,  because  that  was 
as  far  as  my  ticket  read.  I  put  the  temporary 
squinch  on  the  rum  bug  when  I  got  there  and 
piked  along  at  a  ten-cent  table  with  the  last  two 
dollars  I  had.  I  ran  it  up  to  about  seventy-five 
dollars,  policed  myself  up  and  fell  into  a  good  job 
as  boss  dealer  for  one  of  the  biggest  limit  banks  in 
the  burg.  I  worked  along  there  for  about  three 
months,  sloughing  off,  as  usual,  the  ten  dollars  a 
night  that  I  earned  dealing,  by  trying  to  whop 
other  banks  during  the  afternoon,  when  the 
shoe-stringer  came  along  who  nailed  me  for 
more  than  half  the  bank's  roll  and  got  me 
fired. 

"  He  was  a  seedy,  chubby-faced  duck  from 
somewhere  back  this  way,  as  I  judged  from  his 


340        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

spiel.  I  had  noticed  him  standing  behind  the 
chairs  of  players  for  about  a  week  of  nights  before 
he  got  into  the  game.  The  way  he  got  in  was  by 
plunking  a  white  chip — the  whites  were  one  dollar 
— on  the  king  to  win.  He  stood  up  waiting  for 
the  turn  without  much  of  a  show  of  interest.  The 
king  won  and  he  let  it  stand.  It  won  four  straight 
times  and  he  let  it  stand  each  time.  Then  he 
pulled  down  the  bunch  and  called  the  turn  right. 
My  lookout  nodded  him  to  take  the  seat  of  a 
busted  player  who  got  up  when  the  box  ran  out, 
and  the  chubby-faced,  shabby  chap  sat  down, 
pulled  out  an  inch  of  pencil  to  keep  cases  and 
started  in  to  play  faro  with  the  pick-up  he  had 
made  off  one  white.  He  knew  the  game  and  his 
luck  was  along  with  him.  Inside  of  an  hour  he 
had  traded  his  five  or  six  tall  stacks  of  whites  for 
five  dollar  blues  out  of  my  rack  and  he  still  went 
on  and  won.  He  cashed  in  when  he  was  about 
$400  to  the  good  and  went  out  for  a  while.  When 
he  returned  he  had  three  other  fellows  along  with 
him,  all  of  them  just  about  as  seedy  and  down-at- 
heel-looking  as  himself.  He  bought  a  twenty 
stack  of  blues  for  himself  and  stacked  each  of  his 
three  friends  to  a  bunch  of  the  same  height,  which 
took  all  of  his  $400.  They  all  got  seats,  and  from 
the  moment  they  sat  down  they  began  to  wallop 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-SECOND    341 

me.  They  were  scientific  men  at  bank  and  all 
four  of  them  won  from  the  jump.  They  never 
coppered  each  other,  so  that  the  bank  did  not  ben 
efit  any  from  their  differences  of  opinion  on  the 
turns.  When  they  had  got  about  $3,000  of  the 
bank's  money  inside  of  two  hours'  play  I  looked 
around  for  the  old  man,  intending  to  ask  him  to 
put  in  another  dealer  to  break  the  bank's  hoodoo. 
The  old  man  wasn't  around,  however,  and  so  I 
went  on  dealing.  When  they  had  taken  $8,000 
out  of  the  safe — it  was  then  along  toward  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning — I  had  a  chin  with  the 
lookout  and  we  decided  to  turn  the  box  on  them 
for  the  night,  not  knowing  how  the  old  man  would 
feel  over  the  melting  of  half  his  roll. 

"'It's  all  off  for  the  night,'  said  I  to  the 
chubby-faced  chap,  addressing  him  as  the  staker  of 
the  four.  '  Come  around  to-morrow  night  and 
pass  it  in  again.' 

"'Want  to  give  each  of  us  a  $1,000  turn  on 
separate  cards  in  a  fresh  box  for  a  wind-up  ? '  he 
asked  me.  A  dealer  never  turns  down  a  recoup 
ing  chance  like  that,  and  I  nodded.  I  riffled  the 
boxful,  and  they  put  markers  down  to  indicate 
their  respective  $1,000  bets.  All  four  of  them  won, 
which  put  the  bank  a  bit  over  $12,000  to  the  bad. 

"Then    they    cashed    in.      The    chubby-faced 


342        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

chap  gave  each  of  his  three  pals  $2,000,  and  they 
passed  out,  as  shabby  a  looking  lot  of  geezers  to 
have  broken  the  spine  of  one  of  the  good  banks 
of  the  boom  town  as  ever  I  saw. 

"  The  old  man  didn't  turn  up  that  night,  but 
when  I  and  the  lookout  told  him  the  next  morn 
ing  of  the  coal-mauling  we  had  got  the  night  be 
fore  he  looked  black. 

"'You're  both  all  right/  said  he,  'but  you're 
fired.  I  don't  ask  men  working  for  me  to  deal 
brace  or  phony,  but  I  can't  stand  for  the  worst  pair 
of  Jonahs  this  side  of  the  Big  Divide.  I  pass  you 
both  up.  Get  what's  coming  to  you  from  the 
money  devil,  and  consider  yourselves  dished.' 

"  The  way  the  old  man  took  it  made  me  rather 
hot.  I  told  him  so. 

" c  You're  a  game  sport,'  said  I  to  him,  '  with 
the  copper  on.  I  don't  mind  being  fired  par 
ticularly,  but  to  get  an  unreasonable  roast  from  a 
man  who  talks  like  a  sure-thinger  inflates  my 
chest.' 

"There  was  only  fifty  dollars  or  sixty  dollars 
coming  to  me,  and  when  I  got  hold  of  it  the  rum 
bug  came  to  life  and  sung  me  an  aria  or  two.  I 
pulled  out  of  Spokane  that  same  night  with  two 
rear-pocket  bottles  and  a  ticket  for  Tacoma,  and 
when  I  got  there  I  found  there  was  nothing  do- 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-SECOND    343 

ing.  I  chubbed  off  what  I  had  left  of  my  Spokane 
earnings  at  a  ninety-three  per  cent,  bank,  and  then 
I  went  to  work  in  a  harness  shop  as  bookkeeper 
for  twelve  dollars  a  week.  This  wore  me  out  in 
less  than  three  weeks,  and  I  lent  a  listening  ear 
again  to  the  sonatas  of  the  rum  insect.  This 
landed  me  in  Seattle,  and  I  made  a  couple  of  trips 
from  Seattle  to  Alaska  as  purser  of  a  boat.  I  had 
$100  when  I  got  back  from  the  last  trip  and  went 
over  to  Portland.  I  took  a  few  there  to  keep  out 
the  Oregon  wet,  and  when  I  emerged  from  the 
two  weeks  of  it  I  was  still  being  rained  upon,  and 
no  place  to  get  out  of  it. 

"  One  night  I  was  walking  by  one  of  the  garish 
ginmills  of  Portland,  wondering  if  I  couldn't  work 
the  reliever  game  and  get  a  bum  suit,  with  about 
two  dollars  change,  for  the  one  I  had  on,  when  a 
fellow  walked  out  of  the  rum  emporium  and  hap 
pened  to  get  his  lamps  on  me.  He  was  more  than 
the  limit  in  toggery  and  general  grooming,  and  the 
shiny  ones  in  his  necktie  and  on  his  finger  hurt 
my  eyes.  I  knew  him  as  soon  as  I  saw  him,  and 
he  knew  me. 

" '  Hello,  there,  Spokane,'  said  he,  walking  up  to 
me  and  holding  out  his  mitt.  4  You  look  kind  o' 
beaten  out.  When  did  you  quit  dishing  'em  out 
in  Spokane,  and  why  ? ' 


344        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

u  He  was  the  chubby-faced  chap,  no  longer 
seedy,  who  had  been  the  occasion  of  my  losing  my 
job  as  a  dealer  in  Spokane. 

"  c  The  old  man  couldn't  stand  for  your  win  that 
time,'  I  told  him,  '  and  he  ditched  me  the  next 
morning.' 

" c  He  did,  hey  ? '  said  the  chubby-cheeked  duck. 
'Well,  I'll  tell  you  something.  That  was  like 
squealing,  for  he  didn't  know  that  he  had  any 
cause  for  dumping  you.  But  he  did.  Do  you  re 
member  how  I  started  in  that  night  ? ' 

"  '  With  a  lonesome  white  chip,'  said  I.  '  I've 
got  blooming  good  cause  to  remember  it.' 

" '  How  d'ye  suppose  I  got  that  chip  ? '  he  asked 
me. 

" '  Bummed  it  off  some  piker,  I  suppose,'  I  said 
to  him. 

"  '  Not  any,'  said  he.  c  I  didn't  know  a  man  in 
Spokane,  for  I  didn't  have  any  front  there  until 
after  I  pinned  you  to  the  stick.  I  was  just  watch 
ing  the  game  that  night,  like  I  had  been  doing  for 
a  week  or  so,  when  I  noticed  that  you  forgot  to 
pick  off  a  white  chip  that  had  been  lost  on  the 
four.  The  lookout  said  something  to  you  when 
the  four  came  out,  and  you  didn't  take  the  chip 
down.  I  asked  one  of  the  fellows  at  the  table  to 
pass  me  that  chip  on  the  four,  and  he  did.  That's 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-SECOND    345 

the  way  I  got  started  on  the  king  play,  and  the  chip 
that  put  me  in  business  was  the  house's.  I'm  now 
engaged  in  the  business,  exclusively,  of  cracking 
banks  with  the  top-price  chips,  and  I'm  making  it 
stick,  at  that.' 

"  I  told  him  that  he  looked  the  part. 

" '  And  as  long  as  you  lost  your  job  on  my  ac 
count,'  he  went  on,  '  it's  up  to  me  to  make  good. 
Let  us  first  repair  within  and  become  exceedingly 
drunk,  and  to-morrow  I'll  stake  you.' 

"  That  lasted  two  weeks,  but  the  chubby-faced 
chap  was  unbreakable.  He  was  too  much  to  the 
good.  At  the  end  of  the  two  weeks — and  two 
weeks  in  Portland  can  be  made  as  warm  as  a  sim 
ilar  period  in  any  old  place  on  the  slope — he 
emerged  with  an  idea. 

"'It  would  be  poetic  retribution,'  he  said,  ' if 
we  could  run  down  to  Spokane  and  bat  the  bank 
of  the  man  who  fired  you  for  losing  to  me.  Want 
to  try  it  ? ' 

"  We  went  down  to  Spokane  that  same  night 
and  the  next  night  we  both  turned  up  in  the  bank 
where  I  had  done  the  dealing.  The  old  man  knew 
me  instantly,  and  smiled  saturninely  when  I  passed 
over  my  $100  for  twenty  blues.  He  didn't  know 
the  chubby-faced  chap,  though,  for  he  hadn't  been 
around  when  the  latter  had  socked  it  to  his  bank 


346         TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

through  me.  The  best  I  could  do  in  three  nights* 
play  was  to  cash  in  for  $1,600,  but  my  friend  with 
the  bundle  roped  the  old  man's  new  dealer  for  four 
times  that  much  before  the  box  was  turned  on  him 
by  order  of  the  old  man,  who  had  got  cold  feet. 

"  Then  I  went  down  to  San  Francisco  and  came 
around  to  New  York  by  way  of  the  Panama 
steamers.  I  was  so  derned  grateful  to  land  back 
here,  not  only  with  a  whole  skin,  but  with  a  front 
trimmed  with  cow  bells  all  over,  that  I  extracted 
the  gambling  and  rum  bugs  from  then  on  and 
bottled  them  up  in  alcohol,  and  I  wasn't  the  al 
cohol  bottle,  either." 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD 


IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  22  FORGIVETH  YE  ISLE 
OF  MANHATTAN,  AFTER  HAVING  DEPARTED 
THEREFROM  IN  WRATH 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.  22  FORGIVETH  YE  ISLE  OF 
MANHATTAN,  AFTER  HAVING  DEPARTED  THERE 
FROM  IN  WRATH 

"  ONE  time  I  passed  New  York  up  because  the 
constituted  authorities  hereof,  that  I  helped  to  elect 
with  my  vote,  treated  me  real  rude  and  mean,"  re 
marked  Ex-Tank  No.  22,  flicking  the  ash  of  an 
expensive  cigar  off  the  lapel  of  his  blue-and-red- 
dotted  fancy  waistcoat.  "Said  I  to  New  York 
that  time,  4  You  won't  do ;  you're  scratched  ; '  and 
I  went  right  away,  just  as  mad  as  I  could  be,  so  I 
was.  But,  say,  it  was  fierce,  the  way  I  got  jerked 
around  for  a  farmer  that  time.  Right  in  the  town 
that  I  was  born  in,  too.  Right  in  the  middle  of 
the  Tender 

"  Well,  anyhow,  one  Saturday  night  in  the  fall 
of  '90  I  was  walking  up  Sixth  avenue,  with  forty- 
eight  dollars  in  my  outdoor  pajamas,  and  just  the 
pristine,  beauteous  beginning  of  one  of  those  things 
— I'd  only  had  twenty-six,  to  the  best  of  my  re 
membrance,  so  that  at  every  step  I  could  just 
349 


350        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

throw  back  my  head  and  hear  the  music — and  I 
was  going  to  my  room,  at  that,  with  an  armful  of 
new  haberdashery  that  I'd  got  down  town.  After 
four  months  on  the  Croton,  I'd  just  taken  those 
twenty-six  on  knocking  off  work  that  evening  for 
the  purpose  of  temporarily  effacing  the  grey,  som 
bre  hues  of  the  game  as  it  was  running;  of  blotting 
out,  for  the  time  being,  a  too  powerful  apprecia 
tion  of  the  ineffable  sorrow  of  this  life  as  she  is 
lived  by " 

"  Wait  a  minute,"  exclaimed  Ex-Tank  No.  7, 
the  parliamentarian  and  kicker.  "Am  I  to  under 
stand  that  these  meetings  are  going  to  be  allowed 
to  degenerate  into  exploitations  of  Longfellowish 
wooziness  on  the  part  of  every  hot-air  pumper 
that " 

"  The  sergeant-at-arms  will  place  No.  7  in  the 
chilled  ante-chamber  for  twelve  minutes  for  lodg 
ing  a  frivolous  protest,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank, 
rising  and  frowning  severely.  u  Twenty -two  will 
proceed." 

After  the  parliamentarian  and  kicker  had  been 
dragged  from  the  room  into  the  cold-storage  com 
partment,  Ex-Tank  No.  22  proceeded : 

"  Well,  I  decided  to  make  it  twenty-seven,  and 
no  more,  and  up  around  Thirty-second  street  I 
went  in  and  got  the  twenty-seventh  and  pulled  out 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD      351 

my  forty-eight  dollars  to  liquidate  for  the  same, 
having  no  scrap  metal  in  my  change  pocket.  It 
was  about  nine  o'clock  at  night,  and  there  weren't 
so  many  bulb  lights  up  around  that  way  as  there 
are  now,  and  I  hadn't  any  more'n  got  out  of  the 
door — I  was  keeping  on  my  course,  as  if  I  was 
stepping  rail  fences — when  I  was  necked.  What 
d'ye  think  of  that — me  necked,  that  had  been  up 
against  everything  in  this  town  from  the  days  when 
Harry  Hill  was — well,  I  got  mine,  there  and  then, 
just  as  if  I'd  only  stepped  off  the  ferry,  the  first  time 
in  straight  from  Painted  Post,  or  Peoria,  or  Peru,  Ind. 
And  I  got  it  right.  There  were  two  of  'em,  and 
while  one  of  them  held  my  lid  back  so  that  I  could 
have  seen  the  nails  in  the  heels  of  my  shoes  if  it 
had  been  light  enough,  the  other  one  just  clasped 
his  fingers  around  that  roll  as  if  he  knew  more 
about  where  it  was  than  I  did — which  he  no  doubt 
did. 

"  c  This  is  too  much  of  the  batter  for  you  to  have 
on  you  all  at  one  and  the  same  time,  Tommy,' 
the  chap  who  copped  my  wad  had  the  gall  to  say 
to  me  while  the  other  fellow  was  still  necking  me. 
'  You  got  a  list  to  starboard  now  from  packing  it 
around.  And  look  how  we  need  the  money,  too  ! ' 

"  Then  my  head  was  suddenly  released — this  all 
happened  in  a  dark  doorway  into  which  I  was 


352        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

yanked — and  I  got  a  hard  jolt  on  the  left  ear  and 
then  another  one  on  the  right — and  how  long  I 
leaned  up  against  that  doorway,  making  a  map  of 
the  Milky  Way  from  those  two  hard  pushes,  I 
don't  know.  It  was  long  enough  for  the  pair  of 
cheerful  opportunity-graspers  to  mingle  with  the 
madding  crowd,  anyhow.  I  stooped  down,  picked 
up  the  bundle  of  haberdashery  that  I  had  dropped, 
and  I  was  getting  real  mad  every  minute.  I  didn't 
like  insolvency  brought  about  that  way,  which  was 
worse  than  being  left  at  the  post.  So  I  went  into 
the  booze  bazaar  where  I  had  encircled  that  twenty- 
seventh  and  last  and  threw  a  warm,  personally- 
conducted  symposium  of  conversation  at  the  low 
forehead  behind  the  bar. 

"  c  Say,'  I  asked  him, c  are  you  in  on  these  grafts, 
and  if  you  are,  do  I  get  a  discount  for  cash  ? ' 

u  Then  I  tossed  him  the  story  of  how  I  had  got 
mine  just  outside  his  place  by  a  couple  of  gum 
shoe  artists  that,  I  maintained,  were  kept  there  by 
the  man  behind  the  bar  for  the  purpose  of  annex 
ing  good  things  that  came  that  way.  The  rough 
neck  behind  the  bar  gave  me  the  polaric  gaze. 

"  '  Pass  out  de  side  gate,  Archie,  an'  see  how  de 
evenin's  holdin'  up,'  said  he,  placing  his  counte 
nance  within  two  and  a  quarter  inches  of  mine. 
4  Went  away  w'ile  it's  easy  f 'r  youse  to.  Youse 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD     353 

ain't  bin  rolled  none  aroun'  dis  honkatonk.  Take 
de  exit,  or  I'll  come  aroun'  an'  dent  up  yer  shins/ 

u  But  the  twenty-seven  that  I  had  stowed  be 
neath  my  waistband  rendered  it  difficult  for  me  to 
see  it  that  way,  and  I  told  him  some  more  things. 
The  next  I  knew  I  was  making  some  more  astro 
nomical  observations  from  a  coign  of  vantage  in 
the  cobbled  ditch  outside,  and  I  rose  up  and  con 
cluded  to  go  away  from  there.  But  I  was  still 
real  passionate  under  the  neck  band  about  the  way 
the  game  had  been  dished  up  to  me,  and  I  started 
for  the  Thirtieth  street  station  to  have  a  conver 
sation  with  the  man  behind  the  desk  about  it.  By 
this  time  my  two  ears  looked  like  they  had  ele 
phantiasis  from  the  two  clips  I  had  got  in  the  door 
way  when  I  was  separated  from  my  little  stack  of 
greens,  and  I  was  likewise  considerably  mudded«up 
from  the  attentions  I  had  received  at  the  hands  of 
the  gent  with  the  uninviting  countenance  behind 
the  bar  where  I  had  started  in  to  register  my  roar. 
So  that  when  I  walked  into  the  Tenderloin  station 
I'm  willing  to  acknowledge  that  I  didn't  look  as  if 
I'd  just  stepped  out  of  a  suit  case. 

"  The  man  behind  the  desk — I  don't  know  who 
he  was,  but  he  looked  real  massive  and  unsympa 
thetic — was  writing  in  a  big  book. 

" '  Sir,'  I  started  to  say  to  him,  '  I  have  unhap- 


354        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

pily  been  fallen  upon  by  thieves,  who  have 
abused  me  most  shamefully,  and  — ' 

"Just  then  the  massive  man  behind  the  desk 
looked  up.  He  gazed  at  me  right  hard. 

" '  Say/  said  he,  after  a  pause,  '  it's  good  o'  you 
to've  come  in  on  your  own  hook,  Zeke ;  saves  us 
trouble  ;  we'd  ha'  had  to  pick  you  up/ 

"  Then  he  beckoned  to  the  doorman. 

" c  Go  through  it,'  said  the  man  behind  the  desk 
to  the  doorman,  indicating  me. 

"  Then  I  did  set  up  the  long  yell  for  fair.  Told 
'em  that  I  had  come  down  there  to  make  a  com 
plaint,  that  I  had  not  always  been  thus,  that  they 
wronged  me,  Claudie,  that  I'd  have  the  life's 
blood  of  every  individual  cop  in  the  whole  munici 
pality  of  New  York  if  I  didn't  get  what  was  com 
ing  to  me,  and  other  things  like  that.  Well,  these 
little  remarks  that  I  exuded  under  a  profound 
sense  of  wrong  didn't  help  me  any  at  all.  They 
wound  me  up,  in  fact. 

" '  Take  it  back/  said  the  massive  man  behind 
the  desk,  and  I  was  yanked  back  to  one  of  those 
little  compartments  that  have  one  real  hard  board 
running  along  one  side. 

"  Say,  how  was  that  for  a  man  that  was  born 
and  raised  right  in  this  town,  that  had  never  been 
pinched  before,  to  get  it  going  and  coming,  both 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD     355 

ends  from  the  middle,  and  not  even  all  bets  off  and 
twenty  minutes  for  a  new  book  ?  Didn't  I  have 
a  mad  coming  ?  Can  you  blame  me  for  not 
thinking  right  then  that  New  York  was  the  only 
burg  on  the  chart  ? 

"  But  there  was  nothing  doing.  I  had  to  stand 
for  it.  I  tried  to  get  'em  to  let  me  send  out  for 
somebody  to  take  me  out  of  hock,  but  they  told 
me  I  was  a  four-flushing  hobo,  and  that  was  the 
end  of  that.  Then  I  began  to  figure  that  I'd  be 
lucky  if  I  didn't  get  four  months  on  the  Island. 

"  Sleep  there  was  nix  for  me  that  night.  Some 
where  above  me  there  was  a  young  lady  who 
would  alternate  in  singing  'There's  a  Little  Green 
Spot,'  with  the  voice  of  an  angel — I  never  heard  a 
purer,  sweeter  voice  than  that  unfortunate  woman's, 
whoever  she  was — and  cussing  like  a  pirate,  and 
right  next  to  me  was  a  large,  chesty  'longshoreman 
with  the  cobras,  who  had  removed  a  considerable 
portion  of  his  wife's  anatomy  with  a  cotton  hook, 
and  seemed  to  be  quite  put  out  because  he  hadn't 
finished  her.  Oh,  yes,  I  had  a  real  nice  time  in 
the  Tenderloin  that  night. 

"  A  little  after  sunrise,  when  I  was  beginning  to 
sympathize  with  myself  and  to  compare  my  un 
happy  lot  with  that  of  the  Prisoner  of  Chillon,  the 
clanking  of  keys  came  my  way,  and  I  was  herded 


356        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

down  to  the  Jefferson  Market  court,  where  there 
were  quite  a  lot  of  young  gentlemen  with  cold 
grey  eyes  and  little  or  no  chins  who  were  talking 
about  their  chances  of  being  '  bound  over '  for 
Special  Sessions  for  second-story  jobs  of  that  sort, 
and  who  calculated  with  great  interest  on  the  size 
of  the  c  bits '  they  were  due  to  get.  They  gave  me 
a  chance  to  wash  up  down  there,  and  when  I  got 
before  the  Magistrate  he  permitted  me  to  spiel  my 
tale.  I  was  dead  sober  and  pretty  darned  eloquent, 
and  I  handed  the  old  gentleman  such  a  straight  bill 
of  lading  that  he  just  nodded  me  loose,  although  I 
was  charged  with  having  been  drunk  and  disorderly 
and  resisting  an  officer. 

"  I  walked  out  into  the  sunlight  of  that  Sunday 
morning,  sore  as  a  stone-bruise,  and  with  half  an 
idea  of  burrowing  a  hole  under  New  York  and 
blowing  it  into  the  air.  I  had  seventy  cents  left 
in  change  out  of  my  forty-eight  dollar  roll,  and  I 
shot  four  in  so  quick  that  the  speak-easy  barkeep 
stared  at  me.  Then  I  went  out  and  walked  and 
thought  about  what  a  nice  old  town  New  York 
would  look  like  in  ashes. 

"  I  leaned  against  the  iron  fence  around  a  church 
when  I  got  tired  walking,  and  I  guess  the  drowsy 
music  of  the  organ  inside,  that  had  just  started 
playing,  put  me  to  sleep.  Anyhow,  I  got  shook 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD     357 

awake  by  a  fine-looking  chap  with  a  plug  hat  and  a 
serious  face.  His  wife  and  little  girl  were  standing 
some  distance  away.  They  were  about  to  enter 
the  church.  I  started  down  the  street.  After  I 
had  gone  about  twenty  feet  I  heard  the  patter  of 
little  feet,  and  the  little  girl  belonging  to  the  man 
who  had  shook  me  awake  was  standing  alongside 
me  with  the  penny  that  she  had  to  put  in  the 
church-box  held  out  in  her  little  fist. 

" '  Will  'oo  take  zis,  poor  man  ? '  she  said  to 
me,  and,  not  wanting  to  snub  the  child,  I  took  the 
penny  and  walked  on. 

"  Say,  how  was  that  ?  Enough  to  make  a  man 
fall  in  love  with  the  situation,  wasn't  it  ?  Little 
girls  on  the  street  taking  me  for  such  a  castaway 
on  the  shores  of  time — me,  that  hadn't  done  a 
thing  but  push  in  a  few  hooters  the  night  before, 
to  efface  temporarily  the  ineffable  sorrow  of  life — 
that  they  felt  like  staking  me  to  pennies. 

" '  I'm  going  ay-way  from  this,'  said  I,  right  ofF, 
then,  and  it  was  also  then  that  I  scratched  New 
York.  I  had  in  my  pocket  a  thousand-mile  ticket 
on  a  railroad  going  west,  and  I  got  on  a  train  just 
thirty  minutes  later  and  never  got  ofF  until  the 
steam  rattler  pulled  into  Detroit.  I  wanted  to  get 
right  far  away  from  New  York,  as  I  say. 

"  Oh,  well,  yes,  I  came  back.     The  man  with 


358        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

a  grievance  against  this  town  doesn't  hang  on  to  it 
long.  The  old  hunch  to  be  back  in  the  real 
puddle  gets  you  up  around  the  neck  when  you're 
long  enough  in  one  of  the  imitation  burgs  to  get  to 
thinking,  and  that's  what  happened  to  me.  I 
peddled  tin  and  silk  badges  at  the  Fair  Grounds  in 
Detroit,  trying  to  make  enough  to  stake  myself  to 
a  ride  back  to  New  York,  but  I  couldn't  get  hold 
of  enough  of  the  papers  to  do  it  that  way  ;  the  best 
I  could  do  was  to  seize  out  enough  to  get  woozed 
up  in  my  longing  to  be  back  in  this  little  old  town, 
and  it  looked  like  Detroit  forever  and  a  day  for  me 
when  one  morning  I  walked  down  to  the  Windsor 
ferryboat  and  bought  a  bunch  of  tickets  for  some 
rides  back  and  forth.  I  wanted  to  make  myself 
think  I  was  riding  on  a  ferry  around  this  neck  of 
it.  When  I  got  over  to  the  dinky  little  Canadian 
town  of  Windsor  the  second  time,  I  concluded  to 
get  off  and  take  a  walk  around.  Then  I  came 
back  to  take  the  ferry  to  Detroit  again.  I  was 
about  a  block  from  the  Windsor  ferry-house  when 
a  dark-looking  chap  with  a  foreign  accent  tackled 
me. 

" c  Going  across  ? '  he  asked  me. 

"  '  Yep/  said  I. 

u  c  Likewise  am  I,'  said  he.  c  But  I  should  like 
to  have  you  carry  a  bit  of  a  package  over  for  me, 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-THIRD     359 

if  you  don't  mind.  I  judge  you  are  not  prospering 
particularly  ? ' 

" '  Not  enough  to  give  me  that  world-weary 
feeling/  said  I. 

"  Oh,  I  was  next,  all  right.  This  guy  had  a 
little  smuggling  on  hand,  and  he  wanted  to  pass 
the  goods  to  me.  I  was  ready  for  it,  at  that.  I 
don't  say  it  was  dead  right,  but  I  was  ready  for  it. 
We  went  to  a  little  second-floor  room,  and  he 
handed  me  a  small  parcel,  which  I  stuffed  into  my 
back  pocket. 

" c  I  do  this,  only  in  case  they  suspect  me — I 
have  had  previous  trouble  at  this  point,'  the  chap 
said. 

"  I  nodded. 

" '  Well,'  said  I,  '  it's  not  highway  robbery  or 
arson,  and  I  guess  the  Government  can  stand  to 
let  me  have  a  ride  back  to  where  I  belong.' 

"  I  can't  understand  why  the  chap  trusted  me  as 
he  did,  but  I  suppose  he  never  had  his  lamps  off 
me  from  the  time  we  separated  to  go  to  the  ferry 
by  different  routes.  When  I  got  aboard  the  boat  I 
saw  him,  all  right,  on  the  upper  deck.  We  held 
no  sort  of  communication,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
during  the  ride  over  to  Detroit.  He  was,  as  he 
had  anticipated,  searched  with  particular  care  when 
he  got  into  the  hands  of  the  customs  people,  while 


360        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

I  just  slouched  over  the  gangplank  with  my  hands 
in  my  pockets. 

"  I  waited  for  him  up  at  the  top  of  Woodward 
avenue,  and  then  we  went  to  another  small  room, 
where  he  passed  me  a  century  without  any  dicker 
ing.  Then  he  opened  up  the  little  package  I  had 
toted  across  the  stream  for  him.  I  never  saw  such 
stones. 

"'They  are  worth  about  $15,000,'  he  told  me 
with  a  slow  grin.  4  Are  you  not  sorry  you  did  not 
run  for  it  ? ' 

" '  Nix,  Rochambeau,'  I  told  him,  '  I  may  have 
been  a  contrabandist  for  once,  but  I  am  several 
geographical  leagues  from  being  a  thief.' 

"  Which  virtuous  sentiment  he  properly  ap 
plauded,  and  one  hour  and  fifteen  minutes  later  I 
was  on  the  varnished  car,  bound  hitherward, 
with " 

"And  have  you  forgiven  New  York?  "  inquired 
the  whole  club  in  breathless  suspense. 

"Yes,"  replied  Ex-Tank  No.  22. 

A  great  sigh  of  relief  went  around  the  room. 

"  Then  I  guess  we're  safe,  and  can  go  right  on 
in  the  same  old  way,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank, 
rising,  and  the  meeting  was  over. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH 


IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  No.  27  FINDETH  HIMSELF 
SHANGHAIED  ON  BOARD  YE  BRIGANTINE  MON- 
MOUTH  QUEEN 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH 

IN  WHICH  EX-TANK  NO.  2J  FINDETH  HIMSELF 
SHANGHAIED  ON  BOARD  YE  BRIGANTINE  MON- 
MOUTH  QUEEN 

"  IF  you  want  to  get  hunk,  all  you've  got  to  do 
is  just  to  wait,  that's  all,"  dryly  remarked  Ex-Tank 
No.  27,  as  he  ate  the  end  off  a  fresh  Reina  Vic 
toria  and  produced  his  turquoise-encrusted  match 
box. 

Whereupon  he  proceeded  to  indulge  in  so  pro 
longed  a  silence  that  the  expectant  Ex-Tanks  pres 
ent  gazed  upon  him  nervously  and  shifted  uneasily 
in  their  chairs. 

"  What's  that,  an  installment  or  a  sample  ?  "  in 
quired  Ex-Tank  No.  7,  the  parliamentarian  and 
kicker.  "  Has  it  got  so  in  this  outfit  that  we've 
got  to  swallow  'em  serially  ?  Say,  is  that  going  to 
be  continued  in  your  next,  or " 

"  The  Tonsorial  Ex-Tank  will  shave  one  side 
of  Number  Seven's  countenance,  and  one  side 
only,  if  he  exudes  another  kick  during  the  ses 
sion,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank,  rising,  ponder- 
363 


364        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

ously.  "  At  the  same  time,  it  would  seem  to  be 
up  to  Number  Twenty-seven  to  complete  his 
parable." 

"  Somehow  or  another,"  went  on  Ex-Tank  No. 
27,  irrelevantly  and  dreamily,  u  I  could  n-o-t,  not, 
get  'em  right  that  winter.  They  may  have  been 
running  for  Hogan,  but  they  weren't  running  for 
me.  When  I'd  dig  a  sleeper  up,  and  get  it  right, 
and  lose  rest  waiting  for  the  day  to  go  down  the 
line  on  it,  confidently  expecting  it  Jud  be  30  to  I 
or  better,  the  word  got  out  every  time,  by  the  under 
ground,  or  some  way  or  another,  and  the  skate  'ud 
prance  to  the  post  with  I  to  3  on  chalked  in  front 
of  his  name,  and  every  piker  and  beanery  worker 
in  San  Francisco  standing  to  go  broke  on  him, 
after  they'd  hammered  the  price  down  from  some 
thing  like  even  money.  Nope,  I  couldn't  get  one 
over.  Every  one  that  I  looked  over  and  saw 
worked  at  grey  dawn  and  salted  down  as  the  right 
goods  the  next  time  he  went  to  the  pump  for  long 
money  had  a  Hanover  or  a  Hindoo  price  tacked  to 
him  when  the  slates  went  up.  You  can't  keep  a 
thing  quiet  in  'Frisco,  anyhow.  It's  everywhere 
in  twenty  minutes,  and  no  time  for  a  new  book,  at 
that.  There  are  too  many  grafters  out  there  for  a 
good  thing  to  be  kept  quiet,  and  the  'Frisco  graft 
ers,  unlike  the  bunch  back  this  way,  pull  together. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH    365 

So  that  if  one  of  'em  gets  wise  to  a  long  one  that's 
due  to  be  uncorked,  it's  handed  around  to  'em  all, 
and  the  duck  that  fixes  the  whole  job  gets  l  out  in 
the  betting'  for  his.  That's  the  way  it  was  that 
winter,  anyhow.  They  began  to  double-reef  my 
stack  the  first  day  I  blew  in  from  this  side,  where 
I'd  had  the  season  of  my  life,  and  I  hadn't  been 
frittering  with  'em  for  more  than  two  months  out 
there  before  it  began  to  look  to  me  like  a  case  of 
tackling  a  Chink  highbinder  for  a  job  on  his  Napa 
county  truck  ranch. 

"  One  raw  morning — for  the  matter  of  that 
every  morning  is  raw  in  'Frisco — when  my  pyra 
mid  was  down  to  three  yellow  disks,  two  of  'em 
with  twenty  and  the  other  with  the  ten  stamp,  I 
went  over  to  the  track,  resolved  upon  garroting  the 
first  trainer  I  met  and  making  him  tell  me  the 
name  and  address  of  a  horse  that  was  going  to  win. 
The  first  trainer  I  met  was  a  little  sawed-ofF 
weazen-face  that  used  to  ride  'em  through  the 
snow  on  the  outlaws  back  this  way.  He  had  a 
string  of  four  or  five  fair  ones,  with  which  he  fre 
quently  got  the  bum  ends  of  the  purses  and  oc 
casionally  the  main  money.  I  knew  him  pretty 
well.  I  didn't  exactly  neck  him,  but  I  told  him  I 
just  couldn't  see  the  long  walk  back  to  the  Atlan 
tic  seaboard,  and  that  if  something  wasn't  doing 


366        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

pretty  soon  there'd  be  an  increase  of  one  in  the 
prison  census  of  San  Quentin,  for  I  meditated 
sticking  up  the  Mayor  in  the  City  Hall,  or  build 
ing  a  tunnel  under  the  safe  to  the  Cliff  House,  or 
something  like  that.  He  kept  on  chewing  his 
straw,  did  this  weazen-faced  ex-jock,  and  then  he 
said  : 

"  '  Say,  d'je  ever  see  that  camel  I  got  ? ' 

u  '  Yes,'  said  I,  '  the  whole  string  of  'em.  I 
wouldn't  give  you  the  sweat-band  in  my  last  year's 
straw  hat  for  the  bunch.' 

"  c  I  guess  you  ain't  seen  this  one,'  said  he,  still 
eating  hay.  '  He's  a  hump-back  with  four  stom 
achs — but  it's  going  to  happen,  and  I  guess  I'll  let 
you  in  for  the  sake  of  the  old  days  at  the  Gut — I 
know  you  won't  split  it.' 

"  Then  he  took  me  around  to  his  barn  and 
showed  me  the  thing.  It  looked  like  a  cross  be 
tween  a  dromedary  and  a  Mexican  burro.  It  was 
a  California-bred  mutt  that  had  never  raced.  It 
had  gone  wrong  as  a  two-year-old  before  being 
sent  to  the  pump,  and  it  was  still  waiting  for  a 
sight  of  the  flag  as  a  three-year-old. 

" c  This  is  it,'  said  the  weazen-face,  and  I  sat 
down  on  a  bale  of  hay  and  howled  sardonically  at 
him. 

"'To-morrow's  the   day,'    said   my    friend   the 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH    367 

ex-jock  and  trainer.  c  First  race,  which  is  for 
maiden  three-year-olds.  There'll  be  about  fifteen 
in,  and  this  one'll  be  write-your-own  ticket.  Put 
what  you  got  left  down  straight — no  place  or  show. 
It's  plum  preserves,  and  I'm  giving  you  a  real 
push-up  by  letting  you  in.  The  camel's  been 
saved  for  this,  and  he's  a  racehorse.  Get  out, 
now,  I'm  busy.' 

"  Something  in  the  little  chap's  tone  struck  me. 
He  was  dead  in  earnest,  and  I  knew  that  he  never 
fooled  himself.  I'd  known  him  for  a  good  many 
years,  and  he'd  always  told  me  right  when  the 
skates  he  was  riding  or  training  were  to  the  good 
and  meant,  and  when  they  wouldn't  do. 

" '  Camel  or  no  camel,'  says  I  to  myself,  after  I 
had  a  chance  to  frame  his  talk  up, c  I'll  just  let  'em 
run  for  the  books  to-day,  and  take  some  o'  that 
with  what  I've  got  left  to-morrow.' 

"  And  I  did.  But  the  trouble  was,  I  got  woozed 
up  some  before  I  left  for  the  track  on  the  afternoon 
the  camel  was  going  to  get  his  first  peek  at  the 
starter.  Met  an  army  officer  at  the  Palace  that  I'd 
known  when  we  were  kids  back  this  way,  and  we 
shot  ten  or  fifteen  in  as  if  all  the  wet  emporiums 
were  going  out  of  business  before  noon.  Then  I 
had  a  few  more  on  the  way  to  the  track  and  after 
I  got  there.  But  I  was  still  to  the  good  as  far  as 


368        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

having  a  clear  lid  was  concerned  when  the  slates 
went  up  for  the  first  race.  I  saw  my  friend  the 
trainer  and  ex-jock  leaning  over  the  paddock  fence. 

"  '  It's  right/  said  he  out  of  a  corner  of  his 
mouth.  c  Go  as  far  as  you  like/ 

"  So  I  spins  over  to  the  first  book  in  the  line, 
and  sees  that  the  camel  is  at  40  to  i.  I'd  done 
business  with  that  bookie  often  before.  I  passed 
him  one  of  the  twenty  dollar  chips,  and,  naming 
the  camel,  told  him  I  wanted  that  one  straight. 

"c  Another  one  of  your  hot  things,'  said  the 
bookie,  handing  me  the  grin  along  with  the  ticket 
calling  for  $800  to  $20. 

"Then  I  had  another  pint,  and  went  into  the 
stand  to  watch  the  race.  It  looked  to  me  like  that 
camel  just  winked  at  the  judges  as  he  walked — he 
didn't  run,  he  walked — under  the  wire,  twenty 
lengths  to  the  good. 

" '  Here's  looking  at  Broadway  six  days  from 
date,'  says  I,  digging  for  my  $800  to  $20 
ticket.  The  ticket  wasn't  there.  I  did  the  panic 
hunt  through  all  my  clothes.  The  ticket  was 
gone.  I  hustled  down  to  the  betting  ring,  and 
was  first  in  my  bookie's  line. 

" c  Say,'  I  said  to  him,  '  I  lost  my  good-thing 
ticket,  but  you  remember  the  bet,  don't  you  ? ' 

u  As  I  spoke  I  got  a  pipe  at  the  pay-off  sheet, 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH    369 

and  my  $800  to  $20  bet  was  the  only  one  the  sheet 
contained  on  the  camel. 

"  The  bookie  looked  me  over  as  if  I  belonged 
to  a  bunch  of  Malay  boomerang  throwers  on  a 
Midway. 

"'What  good-thing  ticket?'  said  he.  'Who 
are  you  ?  * 

"  I  pointed  to  the  pay-off  sheet. 

"  c  That  one,'  said  I,  and  my  ringers  ached  at 
the  tips  of  them  to  clutch  his  throat. 

"'Go  ay-way,'  said  he.  'Go  right  ay-way. 
You  may  be  good  as  a  trance  medium,  but  you 
won't  do.  Go  ay-way.' 

"A  real  cute  welch,  wasn't  it?  I  only  got  one 
good  poke  at  him  before  I  was  hurtled  out  of  the 
grounds. 

"I  had  a  temperature  of  112  centigrade,  and 
was  bubbling  inside  like  twin  geysers,  when  I  took 
up  the  lope  from  the  track  to  'Frisco ;  and  when  I 
got  there  I  went  right  up  in  the  air,  lacking  toe 
weights.  I  was  going  to  lay  for  that  bookie  and  pull 
out  his  ringer  nails  and  cauterize  his  lamps  and  do 
lots  of  things  to  him  :  but  I  still  had  some  dollars  on 
me,  and  by  the  time  it  was  up  to  me  to  be  at  the  en 
trance  to  the  bookie's  hotel  and  start  in  to  do  him 
rude,  I  was  down  at  the  foot  of  Clay  street  buying 
Mulligans — which  consist  of  red  peppers  mixed 


3/0        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

with  steamed  beer — for  a  large  and  admiring  bunch 
of 'longshoremen.  They  took  turns  telling  me  the 
stories  of  their  lives,  and  then  I'd  purchase  more 
Mulligans  for  'em.  They'd  edge  up  and  give  me 
lung-to-lung  talks  about  what  a  nice,  chile  con 
carne  proposition  I  was,  whereupon  I'd  order  ad 
ditional  beakers  composed  of  red  peppers  and 
steamed  beer  for  them,  and  the  dripped  green  boys 
for  myself.  I  remembered  afterward  that  they  had 
told  me  about  a  seamen's  strike  that  was  then  on 
which  caused  a  general  tie-up  of  all  ships  that 
wanted  to  break  out  of  the  port  of  San  Francisco. 
I  didn't  forget  about  the  bookie's  welch  on  my 
$800  to  $20  ticket,  but  I  was  having  so  much 
fun  studying  primitive  man  in  the  shape  of  Mul 
ligan-absorbing  'longshoremen  that  I  decided  I'd 
wait  until  the  next  day  to  gnaw  the  bookie's 
bones. 

"  Well,  the  blank  came,  as  the  derned  old  thing 
always  does.  I  was  getting  the  boots  when  I  came 
to  in  a  greasy  bunk  in  the  fo'c'sle  of  the  brigantine 
Monmouth  Queen,  lumber-laden,  for  Hilo, 
Hawaiian  Islands.  The  bucko  first  mate  was 
wearing  the  boots.  I'd  been  shanghaied.  It  was 
then  that  I  remembered  about  that  seamen's 
strike. 

"  Say,  mine  is  a  sad  story,  with  tremolo  music 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH    371 

on  the  G  string,  and  I  was  not  always  thus,  with 
the  up-stage  lights  gradually  lowered.  I  don't  like 
to  allude  frivolously  to  the  eighteen  days  I  put  in 
on  the  brigantine  Monmouth  Queen.  When  I 
was  yanked  aboard  the  Monmouth  Queen  I  didn't 
know  the  difference  between  a  capstan  bar  and  a 
ratline — but  I  learned,  all  right :  oh,  yes,  I  learned 
— particularly  with  reference  to  the  capstan  bar. 
Likewise  the  bucko  first  mate  gave  me  personally 
conducted  lessons  as  to  the  meaning  of  marlin- 
spikes  and  belaying  pins.  He  was  a  devilishly 
zealous  instructor,  that  mate,  and  the  way  he  laid 
himself  out,  and  me,  too,  in  his  efforts  to  teach  me 
seamanship,  is  something  that  I  lay  awake  o'nights 
and  think  about  even  now.  I  am  free  to  say  that 
if  I  ever  met  up  with  that  mate  here  in  New  York 
I'd  blow  him  off  to  the  finest  meal  of  concentrated 
lye  that  could  be  bought. 

"  There  was  no  use  in  my  setting  up  the  long 
moan  when  I  came  to  on  board  the  Monmouth 
Queen,  and  I  didn't  do  it.  I  did  what  the  mate 
told  me,  and  I  did  it  sudden  every  time,  at  that. 
My  fo'c'sle  shipmates  were  all  old  flat-feet,  and 
they  put  me  wise  to  the  fact  from  the  jump  that  if 
I  didn't  do  things  real  quick  for  that  mate  I'd  go 
over  the  side  without  being  sewed  in  any  ham 
mock,  and  when  I  get  a  tip  like  that  I  always  play 


372        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

it  across  the  board.  I  was  as  good  as  I  could  be, 
alow  and  aloft,  as  long  as  I  was  one  of  the  crew 
of  the  brigantine  Monmouth  Queen,  so  that  when 
she  finally  dropped  her  mudhook,  eighteen  days 
out,  in  the  harbor  of  Hilo,  which  is  the  main  town 
of  the  main  island  of  Hawaii  of  the  Hawaiian 
group,  I  didn't  have  any  more  than  200  or  so  dents 
on  me  that  the  bucko  mate  had  put  there  in  his 
more  playful  moments. 

"  I  didn't  want  to  ride  any  more  on  the  Mon 
mouth  Queen,  and  when  a  Kanaka's  bumboat 
came  alongside  the  ship  the  evening  we  got  in,  to 
peddle  bananas  and  alligator  pears  and  cigarettes 
and  things  to  the  crew,  I  dropped  into  the  boat 
under  cover  of  the  darkness  while  the  Kanaka  was 
doing  his  peddling  forward.  I  crawled  under  a 
tarpaulin  that  the  Kanaka  had  spread  over  his 
goods  up  in  the  eyes  of  the  bumboat,  and  after  a 
while  he  hopped  in  and  pushed  off,  without  dream 
ing  that  he  had  a  passenger.  When  he  had 
beached  his  bumboat — there  are  no  docks  in  Hilo 
— and  I  rose  up  in  the  darkness,  shrouded  in  the 
tarpaulin,  the  way  that  Kanaka  threw  himself  face 
downward  on  the  sand  and  prayed  out  loud  to  the 
Kanaka  Goddess  Pele — who  is  supposed  to  pre 
side  over  the  volcanic  fireworks  of  Hawaii — was 
real  religious  and  impressive. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH    373 

"  That  night  I  walked  the  natural  palm  avenues, 
wondering  what  they  were  doing  in  all  the  flats  I 
knew  in  New  York,  and  thinking  about  the  good 
things,  solid  and  liquid,  in  the  $7.98  refrigerators 
in  all  the  flats  I  knew  in  New  York,  while  the  big 
stars  of  that  latitude  rubbernecked  at  me  and 
threatened— they  seemed  so  close — to  come  right 
down  and  hit  me  a  few. 

u  About  seven  o'clock  the  next  morning  I  was 
slouching  by  a  big  livery  stable  on  the  main  street 
of  Hilo,  when  a  man  who  was  sitting  in  a  chair  in 
front  of  the  livery  stable  office  looked  up  and 
passed  me  the  nod. 

"  c  Hello,'  said  he,  '  when  did  you  drop  in  ? ' 

"  I  told  him  how  I'd  slipped  in  under  the  harbor 
guns,  so  to  speak,  the  night  before,  informing  him 
that  I'd  been  shanghaied,  and  incidentally  remark 
ing  that  the  next  time  I  went  to  sea  I'd  be  sitting 
at  either  the  right  or  left  hand  side  of  the  skipper, 
so's  I  could  josh  him  during  meals. 

u  fc  The  motion  of  a  ship  in  the  part  Pve  been 
riding  in  during  the  last  eighteen  days  depletes  my 
system,'  I  added. 

" l  Say,  do  you  think  you  could  drive  four 
hosses  ? '  the  man  in  the  chair  in  front  of  the 
livery  stable,  who  was  the  boss,  as  I  afterward 
found  out,  asked  me. 


374        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

UCI  couldn't  think  of  driving  less'n  eight/  I 
told  him. 

" '  Know  something  about  hosses,  then  ?  '  said 
he. 

u  Did  I  know  anything  about  horses !  Did  I 
know  anything  else  but  things  about  horses  at  I  to 
20  on  to  200  to  i  against  ? 

"  '  Because  I  guess  I  can  give  you  a  job,  Bub/ 
says  this  livery  stable  man,  '  if  you  think  you  can 
handle  a  four-hoss  team/ 

"  Then  he  told  me  that  he  sent  a  four-horse 
coach  filled  with  tourists  up  to  the  Burning  Lake 
of  Kilauea — about  thirty  miles  up  on  the  side  of 
the  volcano  of  Mauna  Loa — every  morning,  but 
that  his  driver  had  embarked  upon  a  massive  saki 
drunk  the  night  before,  after  fetching  the  coach 
down  on  the  return  trip,  and  wasn't  liable  to  show 
up  for  some  days. 

"  Two  hours  later  I  had  the  four  lines  in  my 
mitt,  and  was  sitting  on  the  seat  of  the  coach  like 
as  if  it  was  all  mine — a  Kanaka  boy  beside  me  to 
point  out  the  right  road  for  me — and  about  twenty 
swell  tourists  inside  the  coach,  all  bound  for  Peter 
Lee's  Volcano  House,  which  stands  on  the  brink 
of  that  lively  crater  that's  called  the  burning  Lake 
of  Kilauea.  I  came  near  hopping  off  the  seat  and 
cutting  for  it  when  I  first  came  in  sight  of  that 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH    375 

devilish  hole  in  the  earth,  with  the  flame  and 
smoke  and  vapor  rising  and  falling  in  it  like  a 
pulse,  and  I  concluded  right  there  and  then  that 
the  brimstone  spiels  that  were  handed  to  me  when 
I  was  a  kid  at  Sunday-school  were  all  right,  all 
right,  and  on  the  level.  But  I  pulled  the  coach  up 
in  front  of  the  Volcano  House,  after  a  six-hour 
tug,  with  whip  a-cracking  and  colors  flying,  and 
the  folks  inside  the  coach  calling  me  Hank  Monk 
and  other  old-time  stage  drivers'  names  like  that — 
for  the  road  from  Hilo  to  the  Burning  Lake  isn't 
any  Speedway,  by  a  lot. 

"  I  drove  'em  down  and  back  to  Hilo  the  next 
day,  and  those  tourists  all  plugged  so  hard  for  me 
that  the  livery  stable  boss  told  me  I  could  have  the 
coach-driving  job  permanently  at  eighty  dollars  a 
month  and  found,  if  I  wanted  it.  Well,  it  costs 
eighty  dollars  to  come  up  from  Honolulu  to 
'Frisco,  first-class,  per  steamship,  and  I  wouldn't 
have  come  back  to  'Frisco  any  other  way  if  I'd 
had  to  stay  in  Hilo — or  on  the  leper  island  of  Mo- 
lokai,  for  that  matter — for  the  rest  of  my  life  ;  and 
another  $100,  at  least,  from  'Frisco  to  New  York. 
Oh,  yes,  I  wanted  the  job. 

"  Voy-la  !  as  that  Ollendorf  fellows  says.  I 
drove  that  coach  from  Hilo  to  the  Burning  Lake 
and  back  for  two  months,  and  I'd  probably  have 


376        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

driven  it  for  another  two  months,  so's  to  be  able  to 
get  back  here  looking  like  some  ready  money,  any 
how — but  my  day  for  getting  hunk  came  around. 

"  I  was  hitching  up  the  four  one  morning  when 
the  bunch  of  tourists  bound  up  to  the  Burning 
Lake  on  my  wagon  came  laughing  and  chatting 
to  the  barn  from  the  Inter-island  steamer.  I  knew 
one  of  them  as  soon  as  I  popped  my  lamps  on  him. 
He  was  the  bookie  who  had  welched  on  my  $800 
to  $20  ticket  on  the  camel.  Say,  he  didn't 
have  a  one  on  that  was  less'n  four  karats.  I  didn't 
make  myself  known  to  him,  and  he  was  too  busy 
being  gallant  to  the  five  women  to  notice  me. 

" '  This,'  said  I  to  myself,  as  I  climbed  onto 
the  box  and  picked  up  the  reins,  *  is  my  last 
trip  up/ 

"  I  got  the  coach  up  all  right  as  usual.  My 
bookie  man  was  sitting  well  up  forward,  and 
through  the  open  windows  beneath  me  I  could 
hear  him  telling  the  man  next  to  him  how  he'd  had 
the  biggest  season  of  his  experience  on  the  block — 
how  only  about  eighteen  per  cent,  of  the  favorites 
had  reached  the  wire  first,  and  the  remaining 
eighty-two  per  cent,  had  handed  the  dough  over  to 
the  books  by  the  hatful. 

u  The  tourists  all  climbed  out  when  I  hauled  the 
coach  up  in  front  of  the  Volcano  House,  and  sep- 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH    377 

arated  into  little  groups.  I  never  took  my  eye  off 
my  bookie  man.  After  about  an  hour,  when  din 
ner  was  over,  and  the  party  was  waiting  to  de 
scend  to  the  sides  of  the  crater  on  pony  back,  the 
bookie  walked  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  away 
from  the  hotel  to  examine  a  spot  where  vapor  was 
rising  from  a  hole  in  the  ground.  It  was  a  yellow 
sulphur  pit,  as  hot  as  molten  lead.  He  stood  there, 
looking  into  it.  I  was  right  after  him,  and  I  did 
such  a  good  gum-shoe  stunt  that  he  didn't  know 
there  was  anybody  around  until  I  had  him  right  by 
the  collar.  We  were  screened  from  the  view  of 
the  people  on  the  hotel  porch  by  a  bunch  of  scrub, 
half  baked  trees. 

"  He  wheeled  about,  as  pale  as  a  spook,  when  I 
got  that  quick  clutch  on  his  collar.  Did  he  know 
me  ?  In  a  second,  or  less  ! 

" l  Ombrey,'  I  said  to  him,  l  it  'ud  give  me  a 
sight  more  satisfaction  to  just  dump  you  into  that 
pit — and  no  one  'ud  ever  be  the  wiser — than 
to  collect  the  $820.  But  I  need  the  money.  Dig!' 

"  He  dug.  He  passed  it  over  in  eight  centuries 
and  a  twenty.  I  slackened  my  grasp  on  his  collar 
and  slapped  him  on  each  side  of  his  countenance 
with  my  open  palm. 

"  I  drove  the  coach  down  to  Hilo  the  next  day, 
resigned  my  job  with  a  mutual  exchange  of  regrets, 


378        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

and  two  days  later  I  was  in  a  cabin  next  to  the 
skipper's  on  the  steamer  Australia,  Honolulu  to 
San  Francisco.  In  sixteen  days  from  the  morning 
I  left  Honolulu  I  was  making  the  rounds  of  all  the 
fiats  I  knew  in  New  York,  and  doing  my  share  of 
re-stocking  the  refrigerators. 

"  If  you  want  to  get  hunk,  all  you've  got  to  do 
is  to  just  wait,  that's  all,"  dryly  concluded  Ex- 
Tank  No.  27  of  the  Harlem  Club  of  Former  Al 
coholic  Degenerates. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH 


WHEREIN    EX-TANK   No.   19    DWELLETH  REM- 

INISCENTLY  AND    FEELINGLY    UPON    YE    JOYS    OF 

His  FORMER  PEACEFUL  HOME 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH 

WHEREIN  EX-TANK  NO.  19  DWELLETH  REMINIS- 
CENTLY  AND  FEELINGLY  UPON  YE  JOYS  OF  HIS 
FORMER  PEACEFUL  HOME 

"  OURS  was  a  happy,  peaceful  home,"  said  Ex- 
Tank  No.  19,  in  a  subdued,  yearning,  the-days- 
that-are-no-more  tone.  "  Ours  was  an  idyllic 
shack.  It  was  a  wickieup  over  which  the  white- 
winged  dove  of " 

"  Say,  bite  it  off  for  a  minute,"  interrupted  Ex- 
Tank  No.  7,  the  parliamentarian  and  kicker,  "  until 
I  get  the  orchestra  to  mute  the  strings  and  play  a 
few  bars  of  c  In  a  Lighthouse  by  the  Crick,'  or 
1  My  Little  Log  Cabin  on  East  Tenth  Street,'  or 
c  My  Dinky  Four-Room  Flat  Way  Down  in 
Maine,'  or  something  like  that,  with  trills  and 
tremulos  and  sobs  on  the  G  and  D  strings.  It's 
dead  easy  to  see  that  this  is  going  to  be  a  slow-music 
spiel,  full  of  moans  about  busted  happy  homes  and 
rum-extinguished  firesides,  and  we  ought  to  have 
fitting  music  to  give  the  thing  the  right  soaky, 
sobby,  soggy,  tear-drenched  effect,  with  a  gradual 

lowering  of  the  up-stage  lights,  and " 

38' 


382        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

"  No.  7  will  be  rudely  removed  from  the  room 
and  rigged  out  in  the  punitive,  skin-tight  bathing 
suit,  thus  to  remain  in  full  sight  of  the  club  until 
the  meeting  is  at  an  end,"  said  the  Chief  Ex-Tank, 
rising  and  glowering  at  the  parliamentarian  and 
kicker.  "  No.  19  will  resume  with  the  wickieup 
over  which  the  white-wing-ed  dove,  etc." 

When  No.  7  had  been  dragged  to  the  club's 
chamber  of  torture  for  kickers,  No.  19  proceeded: 

"  Ours,  as  I  stated,  was  a  beatific  bungalow. 
It  was  a  stag  flat,  and  there  were  four  of  us.  First, 
me  ;  second,  Jim  Callemout,  the  telegraph  operator 
in  a  pool-room;  third,  Bill  Writemdown,  the  sheet- 
writer  for  one  of  the  main  tome-makers  in  this 
county  ;  and  fourth,  Percival  Rockandrye,  the  art 
ist,  who  made  funny  pictures  for  the  weeklies 
when  he  wasn't  real  tired  and  the  wind  was  favor 
able.  The  Dog  was  cook,  overseer,  and  time 
keeper.  The  Dog  was  a  Chink  we  picked  up  to 
run  the  plant  for  us.  He'd  been  steward  for  the 
skippers  of  two  men-o'-war,  had  done  stunts  as  a 
chambermaid  in  ground-and-lofty  palaces  on  Nob 
Hill  in  San  Francisco,  where  all  the  will-contestors 
live,  had  built  flapjacks  for  a  mining  outfit  in  a 
Nevada  camp,  and  held  down  other  little  jobs  like 
that.  We  nailed  him  on  Doyer  street,  after  he'd 
been  up  against  a  sanded  fan-tan  deck  and  dropped 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH      383 

the  savings  of  a  three-years'  cruise  in  the  Navy,  and 
was  therefore  willing  to  work  for  four  young  men 
of  exemplary  habits  who  longed  for  the  calm  joy- 
aunce  of  a  home.  His  name  was  Hi  Ky-Yi, 
which  freely  translated,  means  the  Dog.  He  was 
a  triple-X,  distiiled-water  jewel,  was  the  Dog,  and 
he  wouldn't  think  anything  of  it  when  we'd  all  fall 
in  in  a  bunch  at  4:27  in  the  morning,  pour  bottles 
of  malt  on  him  to  wake  him  up,  and  order  him  to 
cook  us  up  everything  in  the  refrigerator.  In  just 
twenty-six  minutes  from  the  time  we  chased  him 
out  of  bed  on  these  occasions  he'd  have  the  finest 
parade  of  things  to  eat  served  on  the  table  that  I 
ever  pulled  a  bench  up  to  before  or  since,  and  he'd 
grin  while  we  all  sat  down  and  made  faces  at  him 
and  told  him  that  he  wouldn't  do,  and  that  he 
ought  to  be  cooking  scouse  on  a  lumber  schooner, 
and  things  like  that.  Oh,  the  Dog  was  the  good 
end  of  that  sylvan  retreat  of  ours,  all  right,  but  we 
didn't  know  it  until  it  was  too  late. 

"  The  Dog  did  all  the  buying  and  the  rent-pay 
ing,  and  handed  in  his  shorthand  notes  of  the  cost 
of  running  the  whole  heap-much  plant  every  two 
weeks.  We'd  cut  that  into  four  and  dig  up  the 
sum  total,  wherever  it  happened  to  be.  We'd 
each  chimed  in  $200  to  furnish  the  tepee,  and 
when  the  Dog  got  it  all  fixed  up  we  had  a  home 


384        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

right  and  no  mistake.  It  was  so  peaceful,  too,  as  I 
believed  I  stated  before.  The  telegrapher  gen 
erally  got  in  about  three  in  the  morning,  and  then 
he'd  take  turns  in  playing  on  his  mouth-organ  and 
mandolin  for  a  couple  of  hours.  The  sheet-writer 
would  usually  happen  in  a  couple  of  hours  before, 
with  some  cab-driver  for  whom  he  had  conceived 
such  a  fondness  that  he  made  him  tell  his  sad  story 
until  sun-up.  The  funny  paper  artist  was  on  hand 
all  the  time.  He  never  got  out  of  bed  except  to 
get  another  bottle  out  of  the  cold-storage  box  and 
to  light  a  fresh  cigarette.  I  neglected  to  state  that 
I  was  at  that  time  running  a  flashlight-picture 
plant,  and  of  course  I  couldn't  get  in  until  a  couple 
or  three  after  midnight,  and  when  I  did  get  in 
everything  was  all  agreeable  to  me.  I  didn't  care. 
I  loved  my  happy  home. 

"  Well,  it  was  all  too  good  to  last.  When  I  got 
in  one  morning — the  graveyards  had  done  their 
yawnings  a  couple  of  hours  before; — I  found  the 
funny  paper  artist  sitting  on  the  edge  of  his  trunk, 
with  a  light  in  his  lanterns  such  as  was  never  seen 
on  land  or  sea.  He  was  not  only  to  the  bad  as  to 
his  eyes,  but  in  every  other  way.  He  was  telling 
the  Dog  that  carrots  were  growing  out  of  the  walls 
and  ceiling  so  fast  that  he  couldn't  count  'em,  and 
demanding  that  the  Dog  fill  a  few  bushel  baskets 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH      385 

with  'em  and  take  'em  to  market.  It  didn't  take 
me  long  to  see  that  he  had  the  Brooklyn  boys 
right,  and  I  had  to  jolly  him  into  going  along  with 
me  by  telling  him  I  was  going  to  drive  down  to 
Washington  market  to  find  out  the  market  price  on 
carrots,  delivered  wholesale.  I  got  him  into  a  cab 
and  took  him  to  an  entomological  ward,  and  that's 
where  he  drops  out. 

"  After  that  we  split  the  Dog's  vouchers  into 
three.  About  a  month  later  the  sheet-writer 
walked  in  one  night  all  prinked  up,  and  with  noth 
ing  but  lemon  phosphates  under  his  waistband,  and 
announced  that  that  night  was  his  ante-nuptial 
vigil;  that  it  was  going  to  happen  up  in  Troy  or 
somewhere  the  next  day,  and  that  thenceforward 
to  the  end  of  time  he  intended  to  be  a  sedate  and 
loving  husband  and  father.  That  let  him  out. 

"  The  pool-room  telegrapher  and  I  split  the 
Dog's  expense  statements  in  two  and  did  the  dig 
ging  for  another  month,  without  hunting  for  any 
new  recruits.  Then  the  pool-rooms  were  closed 
up  for  awhile,  and  my  remaining  flat-pal  had  to 
lam  West  for  Chicago  to  get  a  job.  That  left  me 
and  the  Dog  alone  in  my  eight-room  happy  home. 
The  $800  worth  of  furniture  reverted  to  me,  the 
agreement  having  been  when  the  four  of  us  went 
into  furnish  the  idyllic  honkatonk  that  the  man 


386        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

that  stayed  the  distance  should  yank  down  the 
whole  layout,  and  that  there  should  be  no  draw 
down  for  any  of  the  quitters.  It  was  an  awful 
responsibility  to  own  $800  worth  of  flat  furniture 
all  at  one  and  the  same  time.  It  preyed  upon  me 
so  heavily  that  one  night  I  forgot  to  go  back  to  the 
flat.  I  forgot  to  go  back  the  next  night,  too,  and 
the  night  after  that,  and  about  a  week  after  I'd 
done  my  first  foregetful  stunt  I  was  too  far  away  to 
get  back  conveniently.  I  was  in  Jacksonville,  111., 
where  I  had  arrived  on  a  train.  I  didn't  jot  the 
number  of  the  train  down  in  my  notebook  at  the 
time  not  having  been  very  strong  on  mathematics 
at  the  particular  time  I  was  riding  on  the  train. 

"  Why  Jacksonville,  111.  ?  Well,  say,  it's  a 
warm  night,  and  I  like  to  answer  easy  ones,  any 
how.  There  I  was  in  Jacksonville,  at  any  rate, 
and  $800  of  furniture  upon  which  I  could  have 
realized  more  than  800  miles  away.  The  con 
ductor  jostled  me  awake  in  Jacksonville  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  informed  me  that  my 
ticket  only  read  to  that  point. 

"  *  Jacksonville,'  I  said  to  him.  'Which  Jack 
sonville,  Florida  or * 

"' Jacksonville,  Chicago,'  said  he.  '  You  want 
to  do  a  wiggle,  at  that,  for  the  train  pulls  out  in 
two  minutes.' 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH      387 

"Jacksonville,  hey  ?  I  couldn't  make  it  out.  I 
knew  that  I  had  been  in  Chicago  for  a  day  or  two, 
but  I'd  never  heard  of  Jacksonville,  111.,  in  my  life, 
and  how  or  why  I'd  steered  my  caravel  to  that 
port  was  one  that  I  didn't  have  the  time  to  figure 
out  on  the  chart.  I  didn't  have  time  because 
when  I  did  the  dough-mobilization  customary  on 
such  occasions  I  found  after  clawing  every  pocket 
that  the  bundle  I'd  started  out  with  in  New  York 
had  proved  an  alibi.  I  was  just  $2.85  worth, 
which  was  big  money  under  the  circumstances,  at 
that.  I  went  after  the  shave  and  the  shine  and  the 
clean  collar  and  cuffs,  which  stood  me  four  bits, 
and  the  milk  toast  and  coffee  breakfast  gouged  me 
out  of  the  other  thirty-five  cents  in  change,  leaving 
me  a  pat  deuce  to  the  good. 

"  I  found  the  Jacksonville  town  photographer  in 
his  plant  over  a  livery  stable.  I  told  him  about  it 
for  about  twenty  minutes — about  the  way  to  make 
'em  buy  pictures,  that  is — before  he  saw  it.  Then 
I  got  him  hypnotized,  and  he  told  me  I  could  go 
ahead  with  the  scheme  and  use  his  apparatus  and 
draw  down  half  of  all  I  made. 

u  I  shouldered  his  outdoor  camera  and  a  bunch 
of  plates  and  went  out  into  the  highways  of  Jack 
sonville,  111.,  to  do  business.  Every  time  saw  a 
nice  looking  kid,  boy  or  girl,  playing  around  the 


388        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

streets,  I  stood  the  kid  up  against  a  fence  or  a  tree 
and  conned  it  into  looking  pretty  and  smiling,  and 
took  a  couple  of  views  of  it.  When  I  found  four 
or  five  kids  playing  together,  I  massed  'em  into  a 
group,  and  tore  off  a  couple  of  5x8  views  of  the 
group.  I  took  about  forty  plates  back  to  the 
photographer  that  evening,  swooped  upon  his  dark 
room,  developed  the  plates,  and  found  them  all  to 
be  just  as  cute  as  they  could  be,  so  they  were. 
The  next  day  I  went  after  more  portraits  of  young 
ones,  and  brought  back  another  large  stack  of 
plates.  I  kept  at  that  stunt  for  four  days,  and  at 
the  finish  I  had  about  150  nice  plates  of  all  or 
nearly  all  of  the  rising  generation  of  Jacksonville, 
111.  On  the  fifth  day  I  made  proofs  of  the  plates 
and  took  'em  around  to  the  mothers  of  the  young 
ones.  They  ate  'em  up,  and  ordered  pictures  by 
the  two  dozen.  My  yank-down  was  eighty  dollars, 
which  I  collected  from  the  photographer,  who 
almost  wept  when  I  told  him  that  Jacksonville 
wasn't  big  enough  for  me,  and  that,  having  done 
my  little  win-out  stunt,  I  was  off  and  away.  He 
offered  me  the  use  of  his  horse  and  buggy  and  a 
key  to  the  cider  cellar  and  any  other  old  thing 
reasonable  if  I'd  only  stay  along  awhile  and  boom 
his  business,  but  I  couldn't  see  Jacksonville,  111., 
any  longer.  I  went  to  Springfield,  111.,  took  an 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH      389 

8xio  view  of  the  house  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln 
lived  while  a  resident  of  Springfield,  drilled  off 
about  3,000  prints  from  the  view,  advertised  for 
agents  in  St.  Louis  and  other  towns  where  the 
black  man  and  brother  abides  in  large  quantities 
and  my  agents  sold  the  black  population  the  photo 
graphs  of  the  Springfield  residence  of  Lincoln  as 
1  the  house  in  which  the  Great  Emancipator  wrote 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation.'  The  agents  got 
one  dollar  a  throw  for  the  pictures,  and  six  weeks 
from  the  day  that  I  struck  Springfield  I  was  $1,000 
to  the  good,  and  hungry  for  a  sight  of  the  old 
town. 

"  I  got  into  New  York  at  midnight,  with  noth 
ing  but  money  all  over  me,  and  I  went  uptown  in 
the  c  L '  right  away  to  see  how  my  flat  was  making 
out.  On  my  way  up  I  figured  that  I'd  assemble 
another  bunch  of  Indians  and  start  the  happy  home 
all  over  again.  I  touched  the  button  and  got  the 
click,  and  then  I  felt  that  the  Dog  was  a  faithful 
old  canine  to  be  still  in  possession.  I  couldn't 
figure  how  he'd  paid  the  rent  and  kept  the  plant 
going,  but  when  the  click  opened  the  downstairs 
door  I  felt  that  it  was  all  right. 

"The  Dog  stood  outside  the  door  of  my  flat 
when  I  got  up  the  stairs.  When  he  saw  me  I 
thought  his  jaw  was  going  to  fall  on  the  landing 


390        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

and  break.  The  Dog  was  a  startled  Chink,  all 
right. 

" '  Hello,  Ki-Yi,'  I  said  to  him.  '  I'm  home  early, 
ain't  I  ?  Got  anything  to  eat  ? ' 

"  The  Dog  could  only  gasp.  His  manner  put 
me  next  to  the  fact  that  there  was  something  do 
ing — besides  which,  I  couldn't  help  but  smell  the 
hop.  I  pushed  the  door  open — and  it  was  all  off. 
There  were  only  twenty-six  people  lying  around  on 
bunks  in  my  flat  and  hitting  the  pipe,  that's  all — 
only  twenty-six.  The  Dog  had  started  in  my  flat 
one  of  the  most  prosperous  yen-hok  layouts  this 
side  of  San  Francisco.  Besides  the  Dog  himself 
there  were  four  other  Chinks  to  cook  the  pills. 
This  is  the  way  I  found  my  happy  home. 

"  I  took  the  Dog  out  to  the  kitchen  and  gave 
him  the  gaze.  He  told  me  that  he  hadn't  ex 
pected  me  back,  and  that  he  had  been  tempted  to 
do  a  little  business  on  his  own  hook.  He  had  paid 
the  rent,  telling  the  landlord  that  I  was  away  on 
an  extended  vacation,  had  assembled  his  layout 
and  gathered  his  clientele,  and  he  sure  was  in  a  big 
way  of  business  when  I  butted  in.  He  told  me  all 
this  calmly  and  grinningly,  and  I  couldn't  help  but 
feel  then  and  there  that  if  I'd  been  born  with  that 
Celestial's  nerve  I'd  never  have  to  live  anywhere  else 
except  on  a  white  yacht,  a-cruising  the  ^gean  sea. 


TALE  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH      391 

"  I  told  the  Dog  to  get  'em  out,  and  he  did.  He 
went  from  bunk  to  bunk  and  handed  out  the  word 
that  he'd  been  tipped  off  that  there  was  to  be  a 
raid,  and  the  bunch  of  hop-smokers  got  up,  one  by 
one,  and  crawled  away.  Then  the  Dog  chased  his 
four  pill-cooks,  opened  the  windows,  fixed  me  up  a 
nice  little  feed  of  fried  chicken  and  rice,  showed 
me  the  $800  he'd  hauled  down  so  far  with  the 
joint,  and  told  me  that  for  the  time  being  he  was 
too  strong  to  work.  The  next  morning  the  Dog 
gathered  up  his  layout,  made  me  his  smiling  de 
voirs,  and  that's  where  he  drops  out. 

"I  put  the  $800  worth  of  furniture  in  storage, 
and  after  a  couple  of  months  I  forgot  to  pay  the 
storage. 

"  All  this  happened  six  years  ago. 

"  Last  week  I  was  walking  through  Madison 
Square,  wondering  why  the  hoboes  sitting  on  the 
benches  wouldn't  abjure  the  Demon  Rum  once  and 
forever — like  all  of  us  here  present  did  when  the 
gaff  got  too  strong  and  we  had  to — when  I  got  a 
clip  on  the  back  that  sent  me  forward  about  twelve 
feet.  I  wheeled  around.  There  was  the  ex-in 
mate  of  my  happy  home,  the  funny  paper  artist, 
upon  whom  I  hadn't  clapped  a  lamp  since  that 
time  I'd  taken  him  to  the  bug-ward  when  he  saw 
the  carrots  growing  out  of  the  walls  and  ceilings 


392        TALES  OF  THE  EX-TANKS 

of  our  eight-room  Arcadia.  He  looked  all  to  the 
good,  fat,  sassy  and  dressed-up — he's  a  candidate 
for  election  to  membership  in  this  club  at  the  next 
quarterly  meeting — and  after  we'd  talked  it  over 
for  an  hour  or  so  he  dragged  me  over  to  Bayonne, 
N.  J.,  to  have  dinner  at  his  plant.  I  walked  into 
his  denied  nice  little  home,  was  introduced  to  his 
pretty,  tidy  little  wife,  saw  a  couple  o'  fat  young 
ones  playing  around — and  then  that  queer  feeling 
that  I'd  seen  it  all  before  crept  over  me.  I  rubbed 
my  lamps  and  looked  again.  The  funny  paper 
artist  stood  a  little  away  from  me,  grinning. 

u '  Looks  kind  o'  familiar  to  you,  eh  ? '  said  he. 

u  I  couldn't  get  my  eyes  away  from  that  furni 
ture.  It  seemed  as  if  I  knew  every  stick  of  it. 

"  '  It's  the  same  old  gear,'  said  he.  c  I  bought  it 
at  auction  when  I  was  married  three  years  ago, 
when  the  storage  establishment  sold  it  to  pay  over 
due  storage  charges.' 

u  I  stayed  all  night,  and  slept  in  the  same  brass- 
and-white  bed  in  which  I'd  reposed  in  my  own 
happy  home  six  years  before." 

Then  the  Harlem  Club  of  Former  Alcoholic 
Degenerates  sang  two  verses  of  "  He  Don't  Want 
No  Happy  Home,  Nohow,"  and  the  meeting  was 
at  an  end. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


MAY    19  1936 


20  TQ4? 


YB  73415 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


